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.
Block them. Trolls are not worth the trouble.
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.
Debates need multiple consenting participants, so arguing unprompted from out of nowhere is bound to gather annoyance
You need to grow some thick skin if you are going to interact with people on the internet.
No you don’t. You will, sadly, normalize a perpetual state of conflict.
If you can avoid it or mitigate it, it’s for the best.
That’s a terrible opinion and you are dumb for thinking it!!1!
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.
It’s normal, and frankly as old as the internet (any of y’all remember the term ‘flame wars’?). A lot of people here have made great points as to why it happens.
My suggestion? Ignore the attacks, and speak to the content in as even a tone you can manage if you feel the topic is worth discussing. If it gets to a point where the meat of the discussion is lost in the attacks, disengage. Recreational discussion on the net doesn’t need to be a combat sport.
The worst you’ll get with this approach is an accusation of ‘sea-lioning’, which makes some assumptions around intent you can’t really correct all that well if someone’s decided that’s what you’re doing. Though I welcome any suggestions - good faith is hard to prove online when people are so used to attack/counterattack discourse.
Argue bad. Discuss good.
I would say… yes! you never know who you are really talking to, so I would never take anything personal someone says to me online, no matter what was said to me.
these are just words on a sceen that can be written by someone who is unwell mentally, as normal people don’t bring other people down during a discussion.
it takes awhile to get used to this, but once you do, the good conversations you have online will (hopefully) outshine the bad ones. good luck!
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.
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.
Is it normal? Kinda. Is it healthy? No
Yeah, I think this is fairly common. I’m pretty good at not being overly adversarial online, but that takes me a bunch of active effort. Sometimes that means taking a big breath and moving on.
I think it’s admirable that you care about contributing through commenting; I saw a similar stat when I moved to Lemmy and I have also been more active in commenting. However, if you’re not enjoying how you’re typically engaging, perhaps a different framing could be useful: rather than (or in addition to) thinking about commenting as you contributing to the community/platform, think about it as something that you’re doing to enrich yourself. For example, sometimes when I do get into spicier discussions, it’s because I am responding to someone I disagree with, but whose points have caused me to think differently. Or maybe I am enjoying the practice in articulating my views on a complex matter. Or maybe it’s cathartic. Thinking about what I hope to gain from a discussion helps me to avoid unproductive discussions where it’s just mutual attacks.
If you can’t find a middle way, it’s also okay to not comment on things. My opinion is that we do owe a duty to the communities we inhabit, and in the online world, that might imply that it’s good to be contributing via commenting. However, informational self-care is incredibly important nowadays, and it’s so easy to become burnt out. It’s okay to not engage in behaviours that cause you harm (or aren’t encouraging you to grow in the way that you would prefer).
It’s especially silly when you’re like 3-10 comments deep and you know it’s just the 2 of you arguing about some tone or something else stupid…
I try to only post when it’s helpful. Like for others that got there, or to show another perspective if I disagreed with them.
But I’m starting to write and then cancel my post. Its kinda unlikely that this one was posted at the rate I’ve been canceling them these days.
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?
A large part of growing up with social media is learning how to effectively use your emotions in a way that assists you rather than hindering you. Passion and anger are way too close together, it can be really hard to separate them. Passion is very helpful when motivating yourself to write in a compelling way. Unfortunately, it’s something that can best be learned through practice. The good news is the first step is recognizing that it is a problem, so you have started. The bad news is, you won’t be good at it for a while still, but keep trying anyway.
