Could The Web Make People Nicer?

Do you ever think that the Web will evolve to reinforce what everybody used to be trained to have – you know, manners? Anonymous commentary's a bit of an exception (though commentators have been traced), but you never know – maybe all this transparency and instant communication will lead us into era where we watch our mouths better.

Not likely? If so, then you might also say that the human race can't learn – and I wouldn't be one to quibble with you about that. Certainly homo sapiens tend to repeat themselves and their blunders indefinitely – ever heard the expression there's nothing new under the sun?

If you haven't, then you didn't pay enough attention in Bible school (if you went). King Solomon said that (maybe pseudopigraphically; I'll give you that one). Flip forward a few hundred pages in that book you've let get dusty and you'll notice people have never been all that nice. The last guy that told us to be nice to each other got himself killed for it.

Ah, the Divine Irony.

Anyway, as I was saying, it seems to me the Internet might drill home long lost niceties, especially as more and more people get busted being jerks. Everybody's got a camera phone these days, or a blog, or a MySpace profile.

Do you think CEO of Spirit Airlines wouldn't have been quite so dismissive of customer dissatisfaction if he'd known his remarks would be plastered across the Internet.

Maybe "lazy alcoholic" drug-doing parents would shape up chancellor tried to silence criticism by banning blogs on campus, only to get a lot more attention than he would have gotten if he'd just left it alone to scab over.

So, maybe…maybe there's something to this idea that the Web will become some kind of societal regulator – either that or a 24/7 Jerry Springer episode.