Do you talk to people when you are out and about in your neighbourhood? For instance I chat with people I know in my local shopping mall, and if I am meeting someone for lunch or coffee we have a conversation.

Imagine if I walked around my local mall and people waved and said hello to me, but I walked right past and ignored everyone. How would you feel if I met you for lunch and I sat there ignoring you and not talking at all, surely that would be rude?

I still receive snail mail and people phone my home phone and leave me messages. Obviously I ignore the spam mail and spam voice messages but I always reply to people who have taken the time to write to me or leave me a friendly voice message on my home phone.

Let’s talk about our online habits where private messages and engaging with others is concerned. It would appear that people don’t see online relationships in the same way as they do when we are not online. A couple of examples would be when we message someone privately on an online platform and they ignore our message and do not reply – ever! But, those same people are obviously posting online and are not using pre-scheduled posts that are automatic. If they are actually ‘there’ online and ignoring our messages surely that’s rude and quite ignorant?

Emails have the same problem, you might send an urgent email which does require a reply, but people are ignoring those, and may only email you when they want help, support or information.

Online manners are the same as our offline, real time, real world, relationships. People have feelings, people do need answers to their messages or emails. Ignoring people online is becoming a bad habit that is for me the deciding prompt to not connect with those people any more, online or face to face.