This Week: Facebook Mores

I've been talking about Facebook as a new kind of nation. And like any nation of people, their are certain social principles that come into play. Sometimes there are written laws. Facebook as a company has created guidelines which all users are expected to abide by. When rules are broken, consequences often follow.

But apart from the rules, there are also mores (pronounced like "morays," like the vicious, spawn of satan eels that live in the depths of the ocean and produce their own electrical current. Seriously, who produces their own electricity? The devil, that's who).




A quick Google search has told me that moray eels and electric eels are two different species. Still, look at that picture. That is not of God.

Anyways, social mores are the understood social etiquette. They are the social norms that guide our every day actions with other people. And these mores differ from one place to another.

When I went to Zambia, I learned that the proper way to greet someone as a sign of respect is to shake their right hand and touch your own right elbow with your left hand. You then rotate your right hands and grab thumbs, then back to a regular handshake.

I'm not going to lie, once I learned how to do their in a fluid motion, I felt like a real African.

So guess what, Facebook has its own social mores. There are things that are socially acceptable to do on Facebook, and things that aren't. And if we want to be missionaries there, we need to learn the culture.

For instance, what is an appropriate greeting on Facebook? Is it the "poke?" Is it a private inbox message? Is it writing on their wall?

I remember in one of my first Facebook interactions I wrote a message to someone else on my own wall. My brother called me on it, saying it was an amateur mistake.

It hurt my feelings.

So this week we'll talk about some of the proper ways to interact with people on social media. I'd love to hear from you what you think some of the new Facebook social mores are. Leave them in the comments below!