As I looked through my forum on running, in search of examples of Digital Citizenship, poor or positive, I came across a very interesting post. A forum member posted a question yesterday and has already received 85 replies. The question was:
"Have you ever looked at another person's PR (Personal Record) and laughed? C'mon...be honest"
Upon reading this post I was prepared for all sorts of negative Digital Citizenship. My snap judgement was to expect elite runners to describe laughing at all sorts of "pathetic" personal records. I expected justifications for laughing, but definitely expected laughing. However, I was once again shown that assuming does not usually turn out well.
Most of the responses to this post described how rude it would be laugh at another runner's PR. Many of the responses emphasized the fact that PRs are PERSONAL, and that each person deserves to be proud of where they are in the journey of running. The original poster chimed into the conversation to clarify why he asked the original question, explaining:
"I did overhear a coworker do so yesterday and it really bummed me out. It just made me think... is runshaming something that is done now?" The runners in this forum seemed to respond with an overwhelming opposition to the act of runshaming. However, based on other posts I have read on the forum, I do feel that runshaming can occur, but in a much more subtle way. It seems to me that while these forum members would never openly laugh at a fellow runners' PR, they do demonstrate a touch of arrogance at times in their conversations on the forum.
This thread made me realize something about Digital Citizenship, positive and negative behavior on forums is not always obvious. Forums will not always openly display rude behavior; however, when examined closely this arrogance or disagreement may be visible. Nevertheless, I was pleased to see that the members of this forum, at least in the open, scoffed at the thought of making someone feel bad about their Personal Records for running.
Another fascinating thing I discovered while observing this thread was a side conversation that related to the topic. Apparently during the 2012 election, Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan claimed to have run a marathon in "something around 2:50". The members of this forum discussed how "dumb", or "funny" this "lie" was. One of the members stated, "He lied. And stupidly lied about something that could be easily verified. No one would have had anything bad to say about him if he'd run an average or even a slow marathon. But claiming sub-3? Lame.
That is a very interesting post you came across and I could see how you could expect some negative digital citizenship responses. It's nice to know that people in your forum felt like the post was somewhat rude and that runners shouldn't be compared or made fun on based on their personal records. I think with any forum we are going to find those who do post negatively but those people must feel better about themselves when putting others down, which is sad but true. This was a great post for you to explore, because it allowed you do realize that maybe you would draw conclusions about initial post but it seems to your findings people can surprise you. I have enjoyed reading about your findings during this class.
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting thing about the internet. The fact that it is totally anonymous makes it so people say or do things they would never say or do in person. Lying about their running accomplishments is apparently one of them, and being a complete jerk about someone else's is another. It is very sad but human nature I guess.
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