Hey, 40-somethings! These are the new rules of digital etiquette

If you work for someone or are sleeping with them - or hope to do either - never send an emoji. Photo / 123RF

Millennial Charlotte Ivers on the modern etiquette of emojis, phone calls - and using full stops in texts.

It began, as all modern disasters do, with an email. My friend had sent the email to several of her colleagues. It had a large document attached, which she had laboured over for some weeks. Her boss, at 11pm that night, replied to everyone on the email chain, saying: “Who wrote this …”

By which, presumably, he meant: “Who (the hell) wrote this (absolute nonsense)?” And so, naturally, a complete breakdown ensued. My poor friend spent the whole night lying awake, anticipating her own firing, her societal shunning and her unmourned and untimely demise.

In the cold light of morning it turned out her boss had just wanted to check work was being allocated fairly and nobody was overburdened, but by then the damage had been done. My conclusion, obviously, was that this man should be put on a one-way flight to the Hague. Everything about his message — the timing, the tone, the ellipsis … particularly the ellipsis — was perfectly engineered to sow chaos in its wake.

Except he did not mean to do what he did. He had no idea of the devastation he had wrought. He is a couple of decades older than my friend, and had broken several rules of modern communication he simply did not know existed.

I see this all the time. The generation that came of age with the internet — living half our lives through the written word — have built around ourselves an intricate ecosystem of online etiquette. Those who recall the pre-dotcom world are far less familiar with this ecosystem. When the two collide, unnecessary confusion and hurt ensue.

Now look, perhaps the snowflake millennials need to get over it. And perhaps, also, these rules are silly. All rules of etiquette, from which knife to use for the fish to whether to hold open a car door for a lady, are silly. But rules need to be followed and so — as a public service — here is a guide to help bridge the gap. If just one EmailGate-style disaster is averted as a result, I will consider this a day well spent.

Take the simple phone call. There are only three circumstances in which it is acceptable to call someone without prior warning. 1) You are married to them. 2) You are — as of less than half an hour ago — engaged to be married to someone else. 3) Someone has died. This is because the working assumption when anyone under the age of 40 receives an unexpected phone call is that scenario three is in play.

I have called my best friend without warning just once in the decade we have known each other. She has never forgiven me. I had walked past someone we had met at a party and hated with an unjustified and visceral passion. He had — and you won’t believe the audacity of this — waved at me. I don’t know what came over me, but I immediately picked up the phone and dialled. My friend answered in a state of utter panic. She is still telling the story today, to horrified howls from her audience. It happened five years ago.

So how do you phone someone? Simple. You send them a text along the lines of “Can I drop you a call?” But this alone is not enough. Alone, the someone will assume either that someone has died or that they are in Big Trouble. Either — as my mum now does for me after one too many accidentally worrying texts (hers) and panicked meltdowns (mine) — you need to provide more information: “Can I drop you a call? Everything is fine, don’t worry — just fancy a catch-up.” Or you need to be in a position to call the recipient within three seconds of a “yes I am free” reply.

All of this, of course, pales into insignificance compared with the following act of aggression: “Please can you call.” It is the full stop, you see. Coming from someone under the age of 40, a full stop at the end of a text can mean only one of two things: absolute fury or devastating disappointment. I know I have caused huge hurt to someone I love if they respond to a WhatsApp with “Right.” This, of course, does not apply to those over 40, who merrily scatter full stops with joyful abandon. Unnerving.

Other things … If you work for someone or are sleeping with them — or hope to do either — never send an emoji. If you add someone you have met only once on Instagram they will assume you fancy them. On LinkedIn they will assume you are looking for a new job. On BeReal they will report you to the police. If you end an email asking for something with “No worries if not though!” you will be branded as supine and the outcome of your request will be “not”.

Rules change constantly. I’ve always signed off emails with “all best”, but a quick survey of office youngsters reveals this is now awful. Every day brings new opportunities for social disaster. The whole thing is a nightmare but I don’t make the rules. I just enthusiastically enforce them. Still, I hope you found this guide helpful. No worries if not though! All best, C.

Written by: Charlotte Ivers

© The Times of London