OREANDA-NEWS. November 23, 2015. From funny to frivolous to fury-inducing – more than 400 consumers across Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and India responded to a multi-market Telenor internet behavioral survey on what they love and loathe most about the digital world. Here’s Our Countdown of the Top Five:

#5 – Using Profanity

Habits-ProfanityAnnoyance Score: 23%

Real-life Example
That high school friend who still thinks that swearing like a sailor is cool. And whether a child or the Queen of England is there, they will not relinquish their use of four-letter words.

Online Reality
Remember the first time you uttered a naughty word? And your friends gasped in fear-filled silence. Well online, not much has changed. In Asia we like to keep posts profanity-free rather than expletive-laden extravaganzas. Whether hearing or viewing swear words, one reason is that the internet cannot always be regulated to be appropriate to the age of the viewer.

But there is an alternative! Just look to musician and future American president (by his own admission) Kanye West. To notify his twitter followers when he is fuming, his famously liberal use of CAPS LOCK is legendary and, according to our survey, not as annoying as swearing.

#4 – Online Game Invitations

Habits-Games]Annoyance Score: 27%

Real-life Example
Imagine if your friend ran around all the time with a Monopoly box and constantly put the box in front of your face, asking you for a match – many, many times per day.

Online Reality
The internet’s gaming community is thriving and the once niche market of free games has flourished like a seed in a Farmville farm. So if you have even one friend that likes to game, chances are you have come face-to-face with an invitation to join said friend in an online duel – or ten.

While online game players may think ‘Candy Crush’ is everyone’s favorite pastime, just as in real life, it’s key to remember we are all different.

And while some of us will just ignore your colorful Facebook pleas, others of us will simply look to ‘unfriending’ as the answer.

#3 – Sharing Inappropriate Content

Habits-Inappropriate contentAnnoyance Score: 28%

Real-life Example
If your neighbor liked printing off pictures of gory accidents and naked people in compromising positions and sticking them on your windows. At random times.

Online Reality
Oh joyful were the days of the ‘Not Safe for Work’ (NSFW) warning label that precluded a loaded image link before it became eternally burned in our minds. In today’s proliferation of the content stream, we can sometimes feel like a pebble in murky waters filled with unfiltered debris.

The good way to check if you should share something, and risk the proven high annoyance of your online peers, is this:

  • Will it make one feel sick?
  • Would you show your 12-year-old nephew?
  • Is it gory?
  • Is it actually ‘safe for work’?

If not, think twice!

#2 – Trolling

Habits-TrollingAnnoyance Score: 31%

Real-life Example
If someone sat next to you at work and could comment negatively and annoyingly on any work you did, but you could never get them to leave.

Online Reality
You decided to get rid of your old television and with the click of a button it’s posted on your favorite social media platform to sell. Within minutes you have your first potential buyer. But rather than make an offer, ‘Trolling4Fun’ says he wouldn’t buy your television if you paid them. There must be a mistake! So you respond with all the great features it has.

And you have just fed the troll.

Because of its intrinsically mean and useless nature, Trolling, or offensively posting to elicit angry responses, is Asia’s second most despised internet habit. So remember what mom said: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

And in first place… #1 – Spreading False Rumors

Habits-False rumorsAnnoyance Score: 43%

Real-life Example
Remember the mean girl at school? Imagine if she and all her mean friends could say anything about anyone at any time and then simultaneously call thousands of people in the ultimate game of Chinese whispers.

Online Reality
With 43% of respondents across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and India voting this the most annoying internet habit, spreading false rumors across the net was our clear winner. A decisive 12% higher than the ‘troll’ in second place!

In the pre-Facebook days, gossip could only spread by the literal man-power behind it. Now the Internet has enabled rumors to transform and amplify what used to be shared between confidants. Now these stories – big, small, dreamed up or otherwise – can be launched into a colossal online public spectacle, with hungry onlookers feeding the fire which is as unstoppable as it is ‘shareable’. Rumors can be damaging on a personal level, but equally devastating when they are based on ambiguity around traumatic events or social uncertainty that bolsters public anxiety with false information.

Lesson to self – just because it’s on Facebook, doesn’t mean it’s true.

In sum…

All things considered, this survey illustrates that being an upstanding netizen is much like being a good citizen. Keep your swearing at a minimum, gaming addictions don’t need to be shared, don’t show others things they don’t want to see, trolling is never a friend-making strategy and spreading false rumors is hurtful, unkind and most of all – annoying!

We’ll leave you with a compilation of other fun, annoying, did-you-know stats on internet behavior in Asia:Telenor_GraphicInfo_SocialMedia_All