A Modest Proposal: 25 New Rules of Tech Etiquette

Vacations are wonderful. We've been on them ourselves and enjoyed them. No one enjoys scrolling through photos of someone else's vacation while they are tied to a desk slaving away on Excel spreadsheets. We know that you just have to post that picture of your feet pointing towards the beach as your sip a Corona in your reclined chair: it is your right as an American. Just do us a favor and condense your beach bragging into one easy-to-ignore album. Unless you are incredibly attractive and scantily clad, then carry on. Just know that we are likely going to be violating rule Number 9 for the next several months.

Don't make your colleagues pour through emails for drafts of a document. No one wants to dig past a dozen attachments to find the preferred version of a memo. Online services like Google Drive offer all of the utility of your Office suite in the Cloud, and they track every draft along the way. We could get into Dropbox, iCloud and other online utilities, but start here and make the lives of your more tech-minded friends that much easier.

The Game of Thrones "Rains of Castamere" quickly became one of the most infamous episodes in television history after viewers rushed to the Internet to share their reactions to the Red Wedding while many others were still trying in vain to torrent the episode watch the episode legally with their HBO subscription. For the next week, our feeds were clogged with people complaining that they had been spoiled on the episode and still hadn't gotten a chance to watch it. It's time to lay down a hard and fast rule before there is bloodshed over next year's inevitable Episode 9 climax: nothing even close to a spoiler for two days after the show has aired. If you haven't watched it by then, no complaining. If you can't carve out an hour to watch your favorite show, then your priorities are severely out of whack.

Do not clog our feed with evidence of your delusional relationships with celebrities. Twitter is certainly a great way for people from all walks of life to connect, but just because a celebrity appears in your feed doesn't mean that they are trolling their thousands of comments in hopes of finding your gem of a response. Even if you do get a response, it is likely sent by some poor intern or personal assistant who would have a much easier day if you would just steer clear of attempting to forge a fake relationship with some loser. Just build a shrine to the celebrity in your bedroom like a serious stalker.

These never go as planned. Group texting should be an easy way to keep three or more of your friends in the loop, but without fail, the dialogue goes off the rails. Two people respond at the same time; a person references a message that was sent three texts ago; one party is finished with the conversation, but can't stop getting the messages: without fail there is some complication that arises out of group texting. Until we are give a way to opt out of a group texting, do your friends a favor and keep it one on one.

Would you want the entire office to have your email address? What about an entire alumni association? It shocks us how often we see our email addresses given out to hundred of strangers in boring professional emails. There are many steps to growing up, there will be ample trials and tribulations ahead, but one big boy move you can make right now is to work that BCC.

This is one of the hardest rules to observe. As a culture, we are addicted to our smartphones, refreshing Twitter feeds with the same sense of urgency reserved for when we light up a cigarette or down a cup of coffee. We're not asking you to shelve your glowing screen the entire time that you are at the restaurant, but it might be a nice gesture to try to make it through the eating portion of the evening without pausing to read yourself some BuzzFeed. Besides, this practice will greatly decrease the number of marinara sauce and gravy stains on your phone.

Yes, the Rob Delaneys and the Jenny Johnsons of the world are hilarious. That is why they have legions of followers. If you particularly love one of their tweets now and then, by all means, let the world know: even the greatest among us appreciate an RT now and then. That being said, there is no need to retweet every other joke they make. A retweet is like a recommendation, and if we are impressed enough by what we see, we're going to follow them ourselves. If we don't care for their stylings as much as you do, then you may find yourself unfollowed if you don't change your retweeting ways.

It is so easy to ignore emails. Everyone does it. Simply let the missives that make you most uncomfortable sink like bolded rocks to the bottom of your inbox. Much like your tax problems and your illegitimate children, ignoring these emails won't make them go away. Get to the bottom of that Inbox every other day, answering even those emails that you would love to put off indefinitely. If you aren't ready to respond to an email because you can't yet provide an appropriate response, simply let them know that you will get back to them when you can. An empty Inbox is one of the few easy things you can achieve in life that provide a little peace of mind. Remember, if people didn't want to hear from you, they wouldn't have sent you that email.

Even a short message should be conveyed in the body of the email. We're going to open it anyway, expecting further communication is contained within. If everything you need to say can be tossed out in one line of text, then perhaps a better move would have been to send a text message rather than clutter our inbox.

If you are funny enough to be writing jokes on the Internet, you are funny enough to do so out from under the cover of someone else's likeness. Whether you are "Not Will Ferrell," "Honest Manti Te'o," or "Bronx Zoo's Cobra," you are a hack. Find your own voice, even if it takes you a little while longer to get it just right. You may gain a lot of followers if you take the easy route, but most of them will be Spambots and fools who mistake you for the genuine article. Friends don't let friends run parody accounts.

The Internet is an easy place to get angry. We're willing to wager that two-thirds of the comments left on this piece are going to piss us off. Don't let the anger consume you and make you look like an idiot. If someone adds a sarcastic, misinformed, or rude comment below one of your carefully formed social media witticisms, the best move is usually not to comment. If you must leave a biting retort, and have no fear of pulling a Costanza, at least keep your response to one concise comment aimed at clarifying your earlier position. No one want to see a 90 post flame war in the middle of their wall, no matter how right you are about the minor details of Battlestar Galactica.

Much has been written about Kickstarter in the post-Veronica Mars/ Zach Braff world. The ethics of crowdfunding are a complicated matter that could have it's own book, let alone list, all to itself. Let us just say this: for most artists, crowdfunding is appropriate when they are first starting out. All they have is a massive mountain of student loan debt and a dream, and all that need is a little cash to prove they make it happen. Many aspiring something-or-rathers abuse the goodwill of their friends-turned-patrons. Don't come out with a new project every season, begging for funds to complete one web series after another. At a certain point, you're likely going to have to do what most artists in history have done before you: starve.

Harris Wittels put a name and a Twitter handle on something that has plagued the Internet for years: the Humblebrag. Wittels defines a Humblebrag as a statement of "false humility that allows the offender to boast his 'achievements' without any sense of shame or guilt." If you are going to brag about something, then put it out there. Tell us that you are proud of your achievements. We might think that you are an arrogant jerk, but at least you will be an honest arrogant jerk. Be careful: if you persist in your attempts to camouflage your bragging with manufactured modesty, you might end up retweeted by @Humblebrag.

Enough with being a relationship with your platonic best friend. We know that this means you are available, but feel the need to be coy about it. The creepy would-be suitors are going to sweat you regardless of whether or not you establish a decoy relationship. Your relationship status is listed by Facebook as basic information for a reason: someone out there wants to know if you're available. An accurate relationship status might give someone the courage to let them know how you feel so that you can reject them properly and they can move on.

We all participate in Facebook stalking from time to time. Who hasn't been curious as to exactly what the girl who sat behind you in Geometry class looks like these days? Who among us can resist stumbling across an album of old pictures marked "Halloween with my Girlz!!!", "Beach Timez!!!", or any other set of photos with a name ending in a "z" and series of exclamation points? Yes, we all do it, but don't leave a trail. Liking an old photo of the person you are Facebook stalking will make you look pathetic to observers and creepy to the stalkee. It is best for all parties involved if you use discretion and secrecy when you opt to reach back into someone's timeline.

There is a "Maybe" button right there. Besides, you aren't exactly feeling the same pressure that you would if someone cornered you at the bar and asked you to help them move. There is barely any pressure to look at a Facebook event, let alone indicate whether or not you will be in attendance. Don't make things difficult for the host by saying that you'll be there. Who wants to be the guy who shows up at karaoke night expecting 50 people only to see half a dozen sad souls nursing their beer waiting anxiously for their turn to sing their favorite track from the Grease soundtrack? Nobody, that's who.

Text messaging has replaced phone calls in all but the most complicated of situations. We get it. Who wants to hear another person's voice when you prefer to hear the sound of your own? There are, however, times that it is ideal to dial that phone. Walk through the conversation that you are about to have in your head. If the conversation requires more than a simple phrase in response, or will bring about a round of follow-up questions, it is going to be more efficient and courteous if you call. Besides, if you hate hearing your boy's voice that much, you probably don't want to be hitting him up anyway.

When Facebook asks you, "What's on Your Mind?" they are looking for a short answer. If you think that your opinions are so brilliant that they deserve to be shared in essay form on the Internet, then it is time to start yourself a blog. That way, people can willfully ignore your short links rather than being forced to scroll through an entire rant just to ignore it. You might think that people want to hear what you have to say, but the only way to be sure is to make them click through to your musings. If you stick to Facebook as your primary platform for longwinded belly-aching, all you are doing is fishing for sympathy likes and comments from friends. Just a heads up: the few people who do like you're status are providing encouragement in hopes that you will stop once you've received an adequate amount of attention.

Every week there is an article or blog post that goes so viral that it's an epidemic. It seems that everyone on the Internet ends up posting or commenting on these monster pieces. Whether it is those New York Times trend pieces that everyone hates, the latest Elizabeth Warren video on Upworthy, or a crazy person being interviewed on some unfortunate local news outlet, these videos appear in your feed over a dozen times over the course of the week. Don't feel the need to share them, no matter how much you LOL while consuming the content. We are going to be bombarded by the next infographic illustrating wealth inequality in America whether you share or not, and no amount of sharing is going to make us call our Congressman, so give it a rest.

Our parents have often told us that nothing good happens after midnight. We respectfully disagree. We will admit that nothing good happens on the Internet after midnight though. We've all returned home bleary-eyed and inebriated in the wee hours of the morning and thought that it might be a good idea to pick up where we left off at the bar and troll for some action. Don't do it. Nothing is quite as desperate as sending the old "Sup?" message after the bars have closed. The person you are messaging will know that you are only looking for one thing, and that you didn't text them looking for that one thing earlier in the evening. If you return home empty-handed after a night at the bar, the only person you should be calling is the pizza guy.

She got the text. She got your Facebook message. She got your email. She just doesn't want to get back to you. This is a hard lesson to learn. This text above is taken from the author's phone. Several days were spent staring at the vacant space below that blue bubble, hoping that there had been some sort of mistake, that perhaps an error had occurred and she had never gotten the message. The only error was on his part: thinking that she was into him. Rejection is hard. We want to believe that we are desirable to all whom we desire. Inundating the disinterested party with messages until they are forced to break the silence isn't going to change things. Save some face and let it go. You'll be happy that you did.

One of the best parts of a crazy night is looking at the wild events chronicled on your iPhone and posting embarrassing photos for the world to see ... as soon as you've had a Bloody Mary. While the mortifying photos of your friends' drunken antics should be posted for all to revel publicly in their shame, don't tag them until they give you the go-ahead. For some, Facebook photos could cost them their job. Even if that photo of your boy naked in a pool of Jello with a horse won't send him to the unemployment line, he might not be too keen for the world to see that side of him. Ask permission before you take your buddy's last shred of self-respect and he might just do the same for you when you find yourself in that Jello pool.

The selfie alone is pretty objectionable. Pictures are meant to be taken of remarkable things and treasured moments. A reunion with old friends, a sunset, a monstrous traffic jam: all of these things can look remarkable under the right circumstances with the right eye behind the camera. Odds are that a picture of you, alone, squeezing in your cheeks in is not remarkable. We humans are all vain creatures: just do yourself a favor and try to hide your vanity by making sure that there are friends, a sunset, or a traffic jam in the background of that selfie.