Citizens of a digital world

As tablets outsell laptops,and smartphones almost half of the 1.6 billion phones sold worldwide 2013 it is truly time to establish what digital Citizenship means, it is a vast topic and has many elements, here are a few to think about.

We are all digital citizens, intentionally or accidentally we have a presence online, we  have an online profile,we interact online with other digital Citizens. I am not talking only gaming, shopping and social media, we are recorded in Government files, in Company files, on Bank databases, on Doctors files we are digital citizens of  a cyber world whether we want it or not. It is therefore our responsibility to participate in the debate on Digital Citizenship.

Access by mobile device is the norm now, browse, comment, react, on the move, watch tv, movies, news, when and wherever we wish,. all of this openness and  freedom, to comment, to express to share and purely self regulated is a massive responsibility to all citizens digital and real..

On Social media we have opportunity to interact and exchange with others, with this opportunity must come some  responsibilities. Not extraordinary responsibilities, just common sense, decency and respect.
To dismiss or disparage these responsibilities online is the same as doing so in person in the "real" world.
As internet users we  must begin to relate this online coverage to the responsibility and respect of the "real" world and give it due consideration,

Deindividualisation and distance between commentors and poster; provided by the technology that allows people not only dismiss their online responsibilities but never relate to them in the first place. We are often a different person online than offline, maybe more direct, risky, braver, we take the distance and the indirectness to be opportunity to say too much and this can, and has caused  problems for people, bullying and having privacy invaded is common and has often ends in tragedy.

It is however each of us not the social media sites that  must take the  responsibility for our actions online, social media platforms like FaceBook, Twitter, Goggle+ are providing platforms for interactions, for communication, for connections. If they also get landed with the responsibility of how we behave,of what we post, they also gain the rights to regulate how and who gets  to use them, we then end up with a "safer" watered down version that would fit i into an Orwellian era of "1984".

Unfettered access is to WWW is a western world privilege, we may have become complacent with such ubiquitous access, acting irresponsibly, causing harm, bullying, lying, scamming are all issues that cause websites problems, money and reputation.Technology to combat these are undoubtedly being developed and moved swiftly on  to a social media close to you. My concern is that with every step web
designers make to protect themselves from any misuse is a step closer to them regulating and managing how we get to use the freedom of the internet.