I rarely feel attacked when I talk with people in person. And we all take people feelings into consideration enough so no one is trying to attack anyone.
I was not actively commenting on social media since I was 13. But when I joined Lemmy i saw the statistics only 1% of people are actively posting and commenting on social media. And since I knew I was in 99% of people who are only consuming and really wanted Lemmy to take off I tried to be more active.
But now I find myself way too often attacked and attacking. And I always judged people that are attacking others on Xitter or Facebook.
There’s a loud toxic minority online. The block feature is best friend.
Lots of people here missing the “and attacking” part.
Breathe, chill. That commenter you’re about to yell at is just another idiot, like you. We’re all just idiots bored on the internet. Relax, it’s not that deep.
Also:
NO, FUCK YOOUUUUUUUYou’re wrong and FUCK YOOUUU 🖕🏻
Mike Tyson once said “Social media made y’all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.” There are things people would only say behind a keyboard.
It can be hard not to get upset over mean comments but I try to remember I have hundreds of pleasant Interactions with people daily and I shouldn’t put so much weight on the few negative interactions with random internet people.
It might be worth it to consider what tone you, yourself, are placing on the text you’re reading. Words being spoken in anger or not will look exactly the same when they’re written down.
Yeah, this is a big thing. A sentiment that comes to mind is “we judge other people by their actions, but ourselves by our thoughts”. Sometimes I reread past comments of mine and cringe at how ambiguous the tone is.
All the people here saying, “Just block them” - personally I just can’t help suspecting that these are the same people who themselves are insulting and abusing others, who in turn are saying “Just block them”.
The solution is not that everyone blocks everyone else. The solution is that we behave civilly and respectfully to each other.
The solution is that we behave civilly and respectfully to each other.
Is it an achievable solution? Because I have no idea how we could make that happen.
On reddit I was once literally told to go fuck myself for saying it was a nice day. There are psychotic people everywhere, and I really do agree the solution is just to block them. When someone’s comment to me consists of “You’re an idiot” or some other insult, I generally block them. And no, that’s not how I comment.
The solution is that we behave civilly and respectfully to each other.
is this your first day on the internet?
I used to have this problem all the time, I think it’s pretty normal. I did many years of therapy, and part of what I got out of that was an understanding of how people deal with pain and anger. The best way to change someone’s mind is to try to empathize with their position and show your understanding. Once you share context with them, you can gently explain why you feel the way you do. Sometimes, you do this and find that the other person’s point of view is a more accurate reflection of your values and you change your mind instead.
Don’t do this with bad faith actors though. just block them.
Block them. Trolls are not worth the trouble.
there is nuance in personal interactions that is stripped away via text so it’s very easy to type something you think is perfectly innocuous in spoken word that doesn’t translate at all and because you know what you mean the return attacks don’t make any sense. The only way to stay sane in these environments is to be as objective as possible and be prepared to take on new information and be wrong.
all that aside, if someone is personally attacking you they aren’t worth any time beyond hitting block, and the quicker you get at it the better your online experience.
there is nuance in personal interactions that is stripped away via text so it’s very easy to type something you think is perfectly innocuous in spoken word that doesn’t translate at all
Good point. I will add that on the internet you are not even sure the person is a native English speaker. Which add another barrier.
And now that I think about it, they may be even cultural differences that can have an impact on subjects like politics.
All of that will some groups try to brainwash us into buying their products or their hateful ideology.
But there is something I liked about the old Reddit and here on Lemmy/Mastodon is that we still can some self introspection like Op did
When I start to feel irked I imagine it’s Colin Robinson on the other side so there’s no reason to engage.
That made me laugh, thank you for reminding me of that episode!
Normal, yes; healthy, no.
Yes…
It’s easier to be an asshole to words than to people.
xkcd #438 (June 18, 2008)
Personally, I think that we (humans) haven’t really socially adjusted to digital communications technology, its speed or brevity, or the relatively short attention span it tends to encourage. We spent millennia communicating by talking to each other, face to face, and we’re still kind of bad at that but we do mostly try to avoid directly provoking each other in person. Writing gave us a means to communicate while separated, but in the past that meant writing a letter, a process that is generally slow and thoughtful. In contrast, commenting on social media is usually done so quickly that there isn’t much thoughtfulness exhibited.
We’ve had three-ish? decades exchanging messages on the internet, having conversations with complete strangers, and being exposed to dozens, hundreds, even thousands of other people reading and responding to what we write… less than one human lifetime. We’re not equipped for this, mentally, emotionally, historically. Social and cultural norms haven’t adapted yet.
Totally agree. Seeing how “Internet like” communication existed before the Internet is always fascinating to me. Whether it’s fanclubs, wargaming zines or Enlightened era correspondence, people have had written interactions with effective strangers for centuries. But it was incredibly different before.
The very act of sitting down to write, paying some money and effort to literally post it probably had a huge calming effect on idle bad faith takes. And I imagine that getting a letter with someone telling me names for thinking McCoy is better than Spock would probably make me feel derisively sorry for the poor nerd who went to the effort.
Yeah, and if you wrote some feedback to a magazine article, the editor might write a response to you and publish both in next month’s issue, but that would be the end of it. No one who read your feedback as published in the magazine could respond to you directly - it’s not really a conversation, it’s slow and limited by the format. You could write another message to the editor responding to their response, but that wouldn’t get published in the following issue so at most it would just be a one-to-one communication.
This is very different from writing a post on an internet message board and getting twenty responses from twenty different people in a span of minutes. The closest past equivalent I can think of is literal soapboxing, where you go stand on a street and talk at people walking by, and they can immediately respond to you if they choose - but then that’s in person, face-to-face.
Is it normal? Kinda. Is it healthy? No
There’s a couple things at play here when you talk to people online.
Ultimately, there’s a difference between feeling attacked and being attacked. Both are common in online discussions.
Why do people attack people?
The anonymity and distance of the internet makes it easier for people to share strong opinions - for better or worse. There’s a certain amount of psychology around the design of social media that pushes people towards confrontation.
Sometimes aggression is the default state for people. Depending on your world view that might be either sad or necessary.
That said, I believe there’s a difference between a justified attack and an unjustified one. If someone is spreading hate, we all owe it to the community to fuck that person up with our words. If someone shares a harmless opinion then there isn’t much call for a personal attack.
Why do I feel attacked?
If you feel attacked on the internet, there’s ultimately two possibilities: you’re being attacked or you’re mistaken. For the sake of this section, let’s say you’re mistaken.
Non-verbal communication is an essential part of communication between humans, and is something that’s hard to replicate in text. Ultimately, our non-verbal cues set an expected tone.
Sometimes when writing we recognize this and use a tonal indicator to set expectations. Emoji 🙄, gestures *rolls eyes* and, appending flags /s are all ways that we might set tone. These three examples all indicate “sarcasm” which for many people seems to be the default way to express themselves.
Sarcasm in particular is problematic because it often inverts the meaning of what was said. The phrase, “oh yeah, brilliant idea” has opposite interpretations if you’re being sarcastic. Sometimes the writer assumes the reader will know what they intended because they were feeling sarcastic when they typed it. Of course, as a reader we have no way of knowing what the writer’s feelings were at the time of writing.
Another element at play here is that a good deal of conversation on the internet is debate. Some people equate disagreement with condemnation, so if your feelings are hurt by that it’s common to lash out. Many debates on the internet start civilly enough and then deteriorate to name calling and cursing in short order. It’s wise to try to be the bigger person and assume no malice, because once it gets out it’s hard to put back.
Statistics and Bias
You probably had the right idea that only about 1% of users are active commenters. Similar to that, there’s also a phenomenon where the most vocal (and often inflammatory) users represent a similarly small portion of the group.
Our brains are evolved for survival, so they pay special attention to negative stimuli. Basically, they’re always looking for trouble, and if you’re looking for trouble you’re likely to find it.
What this ultimately means is that we remember the bad things far more memorably than the good things. It also means that even if a small percentage of people are attacking others, because they dominate the conversation we start to believe that everyone carries that opinion. But as you point out, 99% of users aren’t even commenting, so we really don’t have a good grasp on what the larger population is like.
It also means that if you exercise your block list, you don’t have to put in too much work to remove the most hateful people from your feed.
Closing
Anyway, I think you have the right idea. It sounds like you don’t go looking for fights.
I try to keep a similar philosophy. If I disagree with someone then I’ll seek to empathize or educate. However, if someone is vocal about my erasure or directing hate and violence towards people then I’ll let them have it. I figure those people are looking for trouble and by golly I’ll give it to them - it’s always morally correct to punch a nazi.
Some people do, some people don’t. One big difference online is that projection is a lot bigger of a thing. Because letters don’t tend to have a face or tone of voice, so your brain has to fill in a lot about what’s being said.
Things like these, that your brain does automatically, can change. And you can control how. Practice trying to see things in a different manner, and you might find it changes how things you see tend to ‘seem’ to you at first sight.
It’s taken a while for me to get to the point where I’ll write a comment, and think “do I really want to kick this potential hornets nest?” And delete the comment.
I find myself having a much better time hanging out and interacting with the folks in the asklemmy communities versus those in political threads.
Same experience. And it’s a shame.
And yet I’ve found that, occasionally, after I brace myself for the blowback, instead there comes a thoughtful reply which assumes good faith. It’s those occasions which keep me coming back.
