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What Research Shows About Internet Trolls
You don’t have to respond to them, but it helps to understand them.
Internet trolls — you can’t live with them, and you can’t spray them with Raid.
I typically don’t respond to internet trolls because that’s really what they want — to get an emotional reaction out of you. It’s one thing to disagree with someone, but internet trolls are only looking for their next sting. They feed on conflict rather than knowledge.
Recently I received a few comments for my response to someone else’s evidence-based article on COVID. I admired the research and graphs from the article, so I lauded the writer.
The trolls didn’t like it. They responded with various ad hominem attacks and pleas for me to address my cognitive dissonance. I had to laugh at the latter because I had written a paper on Festinger’s Theory of Cognitive Dissonance in graduate school. I heard echoes of Inigo Montoya: “You keep using that word...”
Sure, my need to be right was aroused. I wanted to give them a dose of their vitriol, but that only shows that I was easy prey for their drama. Playing their game puts them in control, and no resolution would ever arrive until they “won.”
