Faceless Friends of the Internet

In the past few days, I have had numerous conversations on the internet with people I have never met, either through chat windows, email or comment boxes on blogs. The nicest thing about it is that they all were so helpful and genuinely pleasant. We asked permission. We said thank you. Wished that each would have a nice day. Their mothers would be proud.

Unfortunately, this has not always been my experience on the internet, particularly playing online poker. It doesn’t seem to matter whether its play money or the small stakes tournaments in which I participate. In fact, since I have immersed myself in writing, I haven’t signed onto play. It has to have something to do with the rudeness I’m sure. I also think it has a lot to do with the age of some of the participants. There’s a lot of young people out there playing online gaming–some on their parents login (minimum age is 18 on most sites).

We have to develop a way to curtail this bad behavior. In my day, Dad would use the belt if you got out of line. You lost privileges if you were rude to people. There’s a lot of parents out there today that just look the other way when their kids get out of line. So the message to their children is I can get away with that so I will continue being rude.

The criminal justice system might consider gearing up for a virtual flood of cases in the future. This unsocial behavior has the potential to develop into even more dangerous activities if it continues to go unpunished. The cat will continue to scratch the furniture if you don’t teach it that it’s wrong.

Just because the other person doesn’t have a face or a real name doesn’t mean you have any right to act rudely. It’s time to bring back discipline at home. Ultimately, your children will thank you for it.