Do manners matter when talking to technology?

Source: Wikimedia Commons

—  Say “please” and “thank you.”

For many of us who live in or come from the Southeastern U.S., manners were drilled into us by our parents as we were growing up and learning how to address others. When speaking to grownups, kids are to use “sir” and “ma’am.” It’s just done. Even if you don’t come from the South, you still want to speak and be spoken to using a courteous, friendly voice.

But what about manners when using a voice-activated device, be it a smart speaker, smart phone or smart something else?

Amy Graff of SFGate looked at how her son sternly asked for a game score when using her phone and got to thinking about how any of us interact with these devices and apps.

Does it really matter about manners when speaking to a non-human device?

And when you, a grownup, snap back at Alexa, Cortana or Siri when they don’t understand your request, what do children within earshot think? To answer that “does it matter” question, you might consider this — does it matter when children model the kind of behavior they observe when parents or grandparents talk to their phone or smart device? You might know the saying 'some things are better caught than taught.' I think there’s a psychological connect between addressing a device and addressing a real person.

It’s no wonder that etiquette classes sometimes include these digital interactions, along with emailing, texting and when to check your Facebook feed. Through Artificial Intelligence (AI), Google and others can even make their devices respond to polite requests.

Away from home, I make these observations.

While attending meetings, I’m sometimes mildly amused when someone at the meeting receives a call, and then speaks commands through the Bluetooth device he's wearing. How much easier, I think to myself, would it be to feel the phone vibrate, quietly pick it up and touch an icon to send the call to voicemail?

Manners aside, are there things you can say to your device that might get you into trouble? If your thing is black humor, your words might be taken seriously (It’s probably not a good idea to joke about where you hid the body, okay?).

Well, I could go on and on, but that will be a topic for another day.

Full disclosure here -- I really don’t talk to digital devices, regardless of what they are, so my understanding is somewhat limited here. I do know this: no matter what the device, as with any smart device, it should be set up on a secure WiFi network using secure passwords to minimize possible issues.

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