Can’t we all just be human on the internet? No. We can’t.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about how the internet can be particularly good at documenting the worst communication possible between humans.
I read a couple of things recently that reminded me of a rant I posted a while back, titled Vommenting On Social Media. It’s a term I thought pretty well described some of the emotion-fueled and reactionary comments that we tend to see (and sometimes write) on the internet.
Our Past Memories
I thought about vommenting again because of a well-written article here on Medium talking about how our social posts from the past only reflect the state of mind we had at that moment. It dives into further explanation about how we humans modify our memories of an event based on information we collect after that event. I have done some thinking about that phenomenon in the past because it’s pretty interesting, and I have quite often caught myself having modified memories of past events.
However, I’ve never applied that line of thinking to relationships. Specifically, I’ve never entertained the notion that my memories of what other people have done and said could be way off. That seems pretty important, though, since our past memories of people form the basis for our present relationships.
Disclaimer - no formal training in psychology or psychiatry for me, and the closest I get to those fields is electrical engineering with the benefit of some life experience. So I could be way off base (but I still think I’m right).
In any case, here’s the article that got me thinkin’ about it. It’s worth a read!
A Plea To Be Civil
The second thing I ran across recently, which compelled me to write this quick article was a post on Nextdoor.com about being civil to others using the system. For those of you that don’t know, Nextdoor is basically a message board where you can connect with your neighbors, get recommendations, post local announcements, find lost pets, etc. I like it because it’s community-focused and uses the internet to bring about real world interactions… mostly.
Over the years, I’ve seen the occasional internet “argument” on Nextdoor.com, but the tension has increased recently. Apparently, enough to require an entire post about being civil to our fellow neighbors. Conversations are private unless you are part of the community, but the post went something like this:
There are some people that tend to be offensive and shaming in their comments to others who do not share their beliefs. If you see these types of comments, please report them to the administrators to keep things fun and positive.
Nothing wrong with a quick reminder to be nice, but it got me thinking about whether it’s really possible to be nice on the internet at all.
It’s Really Hard To “Be Nice” In A Comment
Humans are bad communicators in the first place, and it’s difficult to distill complex thoughts into words that effectively communicate those thoughts.
When writing, our communication gets more difficult. We can’t use body language and tone of voice with emphasis to add context. It’s also impossible to further explain what we meant after seeing the horrified look on someone’s face who has misinterpreted things.
Even harder, is to reduce long explanations (with background to add context) to a few sentences short enough that people will read it completely. Good opinion pieces take the reader on a journey to help frame the writer’s perspective before blurting out the conclusion. This almost never happens on internet platforms, and a longer piece would most likely be skimmed in favor of getting to the point anyway.
Those who are good at this have taken years to not only perfect their craft, but many iterations to perfect the words themselves. None of which happens on internet platforms.
On top of all this, most interesting opinions don’t reflect the opinion of the masses. Comments that are generalized and watered down to the point where they don’t say much are not very volatile, but they’re not very interesting either. So by that definition, something interesting is going to sound great to one reader and not great to maybe 1000 others.
I like Medium and similar publishing platforms because articles are somewhere between the momentary recording of thoughts and the massive effort behind printed material.
To The Point!
So I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to carry on internet conversations about emotionally-charged topics. Maybe all the sensible people automatically know this already, but I’ve always been a bit slow with obvious things. I no longer engage in commenting at all unless I’m fairly certain readers will understand my point of view and take the opinion for what it is… one opinion from some guy on the internet.
I still read plenty of articles and comments calling for more meaningful discourse on various topics. The implication being that the internet is a great way to do this while reaching a large audience. My vote is for the opposite. We need less discourse on the internet about these things, and more in-person conversations for those that care enough to do it. Of course, I typically don’t chime in to point that out since this can be an emotionally-charged topic :)
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