Are people more negative/angry/depressed/etc online because being online is a negative experience?

[Cloud_Strife]

There are very few places on the web that i can visit which aren't either anti-trans or tolerant of anti-trans rhetoric to some degree, reddit, facebook, youtube, twitter for example

 

[amadeus]

Its regrettable that most lighthouses are automated rather than having keepers nowadays. That would've been a good job.

It would be better than having noisy neighbors, or being in a city where I can't get away for a peaceful walk around the neighborhood. If I could remote work, I might be out in the countryside... or at least within close driving distance to a medium-sized city that had a supermarket, hospital, you know, civilization stuff.

reddit

Ew, ew! Get it away!

 

[El_Machinae]

Assuming everyone knows the stipulations of the situation (needs met, there for six months, will then go back to society & presumably be charged for any murders) I don't see why it would have to go so dark.

To paraphrase, it's not because I'm trapped there with them. They're trapped there with ME.

 

[warpus]

It's a lot easier to sit at a computer and let out your true feelings and opinions. There is a feeling that what you're typing here is anonymous, even though in many cases it really isn't. This is contrasted with telling a lie to somebody's face, or telling them an unpleasant truth (or opinion). When you're doing something like that face to face, there is body language, phermones, facial cues, and all sorts of other stuff going on. We are probably to some degree conditioned to subconsciously analyze all of that in order to try to gauge the other person's state of mind or whatever. But online you can't do any of that, so you are free to be a psycho. TURTLES EAT CAKE

 

[Gori the Grey]

no other humans but access not only to the Internet but a staff of helpers

I'll take no other humans than a staff of helpers.

 

[Tee Kay]

I for one have been seriously looking at online hygiene.

I've recently purged about half the Facebook pages I was following, mostly political ones that I've found to be no longer helpful in helping me understand the world and my place in it.

And I've found that I really only need about an hour of online browsing and social media a day; a lot of my time is wasted on repeatedly refreshing the same three or four sites, when I could be creating.

 

[BvBPL]

People appear more negative online because the principal barriers to negative interactions do not apply to online interactions. Non-verbal (and verbal) cues amid in-person interaction largely reduce the amount of negative in-person interaction. Those cues are not present in online interactions.

 

[Hygro]

I for one have been seriously looking at online hygiene.

I've recently purged about half the Facebook pages I was following, mostly political ones that I've found to be no longer helpful in helping me understand the world and my place in it.

And I've found that I really only need about an hour of online browsing and social media a day; a lot of my time is wasted on repeatedly refreshing the same three or four sites, when I could be creating.

Or not even creating but all good things/other things.

 

[warpus]

Alot of people all irritable online. I noticed it in others 1st (of course) and then in myself.

When you're talking to somebody face to face a lot of stuff is going on. Your brain is analyzing the other person's body language, facial expressions, phermones, and who knows what else. All of this evolved over millions of years because it gave our ancestors an advantage over those who did not have some of these mutations (this is an incredibly simplified version of what happened). Without these "tools" it would be a lot harder for you to "read" people when you interact with them, and figure out if they're friendly, an enemy, or something else. So you could imagine an early society without these benefits always being on edge when interacting with strangers or even friends. Meanwhile those who have such abilities can read the other person to some extent.

When you are engaging with me and others here, none of that is happening. So all those internal analysis is not happening at all, so many of those ways we've evolved to engage others do not kick in. IMO this is a part of the "problem" - the way we've been communicating over millions of years has been thrown out the window and a completely new form of communication is now in place (over the internet, or phone or what have you). Your internal "is this dude friendly" tools are for the most part not working at all, so you have to fill in the blanks. IMO that gives people a bit of bravado, since it can often feel like the person on the other end isn't even a real person. How often have you read a comment by a stranger on the internet and thought: "Is this a moron, a bot, just an ignorant person or.. " ? It's a lot easier to watch a person saying these words face to face and judge that person from that pov. It makes the interaction more personal and probably triggers some empathy in your brain in some capacity. I bet that face to face communication puts you in a "friend or foe?" mode of sorts, unless you already know the person, in which your brain is constantly analyzing the situation anyway. In online conversation none of this is possible so your brain probably feels a bit lost (and those empathy subroutines might not kick in either).

All that coupled with: "Hey, this is anonymous, I can say what I want" is probably what is leading to people being jerks online vs face2face conversations, where most people will usually at least try to be nice to the other party, even if they hate them. That fake British/American smile thing.

Wasn't it back during the BBS age when it was realized that when people feel that they have some sort of anonymity they are far less likely to play nice? This is no different, except that it's a lot more pervasive in our society than BBS' and fidonet ever were.

 

[Zardnaar]

When you're talking to somebody face to face a lot of stuff is going on. Your brain is analyzing the other person's body language, facial expressions, phermones, and who knows what else. All of this evolved over millions of years because it gave our ancestors an advantage over those who did not have some of these mutations (this is an incredibly simplified version of what happened). Without these "tools" it would be a lot harder for you to "read" people when you interact with them, and figure out if they're friendly, an enemy, or something else. So you could imagine an early society without these benefits always being on edge when interacting with strangers or even friends. Meanwhile those who have such abilities can read the other person to some extent.

When you are engaging with me and others here, none of that is happening. So all those internal analysis is not happening at all, so many of those ways we've evolved to engage others do not kick in. IMO this is a part of the "problem" - the way we've been communicating over millions of years has been thrown out the window and a completely new form of communication is now in place (over the internet, or phone or what have you). Your internal "is this dude friendly" tools are for the most part not working at all, so you have to fill in the blanks. IMO that gives people a bit of bravado, since it can often feel like the person on the other end isn't even a real person. How often have you read a comment by a stranger on the internet and thought: "Is this a moron, a bot, just an ignorant person or.. " ? It's a lot easier to watch a person saying these words face to face and judge that person from that pov. It makes the interaction more personal and probably triggers some empathy in your brain in some capacity. I bet that face to face communication puts you in a "friend or foe?" mode of sorts, unless you already know the person, in which your brain is constantly analyzing the situation anyway. In online conversation none of this is possible so your brain probably feels a bit lost (and those empathy subroutines might not kick in either).

All that coupled with: "Hey, this is anonymous, I can say what I want" is probably what is leading to people being jerks online vs face2face conversations, where most people will usually at least try to be nice to the other party, even if they hate them. That fake British/American smile thing.

Wasn't it back during the BBS age when it was realized that when people feel that they have some sort of anonymity they are far less likely to play nice? This is no different, except that it's a lot more pervasive in our society than BBS' and fidonet ever were.

IRL there's the social exclusion part or ye olde punch in face if you're a jackass.