Social Norms for New Technology

The winds of technology have unleashed a storm of confusion on the sea of humanity. Texting, sexting, IMing, Facebooking, online dating—I can't handle it! How does all this stuff fit into our established rules of interaction?

Thankfully, Brad Pitt is here to guide our way.

In the July issue of Wired magazine, Mr. Pitt and company spill the beans on surviving in a tech-saturated world. The article, "How to Behave: New Rules for Highly Evolved Humans", provides some of the following gems:

Using [your Facebook status] to declare a breakup is like announcing you're going to sleep by pounding the lamp with a hammer: It gets the point across, but you're likely to leave a mess behind.

Don't Google-stalk before a first date... Reading your date's Muppet Show fanfic might end a beautiful friendship before it even begins.

Friend your boss but not your boss's boss.

When your college pals emerge from their parents' basements to litter your Facebook wall with sexist jokes or embarrassing tales of drunken misadventure, people may think you're like them.... Don't be shy about deleting untoward graffiti, eliminating your name from tagged photos, or even asking friends to remove incriminating pics that weren't meant for public consumption.

And...

Here's a rule of thumb for those of us playing catch-up: Feel free to text while talking or dining with friends.

Well, no. More on that topic soon.