Inappropriate use-Amy Johnson

It seems to me that there has been an evolution of communication throughout history, from face-to-face to rudimentary sounds and gestures to oral language to written pictorial language to alphabetic language to Roman universalism to the printing press to the mail service to distance technology of telegraph and telephones to recorded television to written digital communication to video communication, all of which brought humanity together but now takes us farther apart than ever, enabling communication from even space.  The thing after reading some of the other posts that I wanted to lift up is how the progression back away from communal communication to instant but distant and individual digital communication  removes relationships from communication. No longer do we even need to know others to communicate with them. Only, that leads to man misunderstandings and abuses. Students do not learn that the person on the other end is a real person, but rather they can become just a comment on a screen. The temptation is to  dehumanize the communicant which can lead to inappropriate rudeness and abuse online.  
For example, when I engage in political conversations online, it can be easy to fall into insults or anger.  We both leave the conversation angry and offended because it becomes full of what feels ljke person am attacks. It is too easy to do that when we do not have to look the otber person in the eye. Many times, I have had a difficult time facing friends after having read comments they have made online in political communications.
Likewise, inappropriate pictures online can just seem like any other impersonal picture to a teenager. It doesn't feel like a violation to share it because it is a picture of a stranger, impersonal. Only we know that sharing such things is unethical because whether online or not, people have feelings. Digital etiquette, then, is dependent upon our students understanding the personhood of those on the other end of their communications and actions online.  To be able to increase their understanding of this, we must teach more than information; we must teach empathy.