7 ms·

How Web Forums Make Neuroticism Viral

107 points by imartin2k 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
empressplay 10y ago
Blah blah blah, people with problems talk about them more. No shit.
- dang 10y ago
  Would you please not post like this here? We're trying for better: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html. If an article doesn't merit a substantive comment, it probably doesn't merit any comment.
  - empressplay 10y ago
    My apologies. I didn't like some of the things the article inferred. I should have been more specific about that.
pella 10y ago
my favorite "game" Nicky Case: WE BECOME WHAT WE BEHOLD; a game about news cycles, vicious cycles, infinite cycles "ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴇᴅɪᴀ's vicious cycles. Here's the feedback loop: conflict → the media blows it up → even more conflict" [1] https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb ( need ~5min) [1] http://blog.ncase.me/we-become-what-we-behold-a-post-mortem/ http://blog.ncase.me/we-become-what-we-behold-a-post-mortem/
- JBReefer 10y ago
  Required reading on the matter: https://medium.com/@parkermolloy/5-things-the-media-does-to-manufacture-outrage-ba79125e1262 https://medium.com/@parkermolloy/5-things-the-media-does-to-...
Noumenon72 10y ago
Perhaps this is the reason that Dungeons and Dragons DM advice is so detailed and exhaustive that it would take hours to prepare each session, while actual D&D games with very little DM prep are usually still fun. I got the "I must shoot 10,000 free throws to be prepared" attitude about becoming a developer -- must know Linux, concurrency, all interview questions, salary negotiation, and so on. It was daunting but ultimately correct, I got the kind of job I wanted and doubt I could have done it without being neurotic about it. Or maybe I would have been fine and I'm still being neurotic and overdoing it. This article's perspective is helpful because "Remember that all this advice is coming from neurotics" was not something I took into account.
imgabe 10y ago
I think this could be extended to the mass media in general. Where do we get our information from? Journalists. What do journalists do? They write news articles. They don't actually do any of the things they write about, they only write. We very seldom (in comparison) get perspective from the people who are doing things - because they are too busy doing them to talk about it.
- cpncrunch 10y ago
  >We very seldom (in comparison) get perspective from the people who are doing things - because they are too busy doing them to talk about it. Actually, journalists interview these people.
  - imgabe 10y ago
    And that interview is filtered through the journalist's perspective.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  You have a really odd idea of how journalism functions.
  - imgabe 10y ago
    Could you elaborate? Is it not written by journalists?
    - srssays 10y ago
      It is written by PR people, wire services and politicos. The journalist simply assembles the ready-made components into the lowest energy configuration.
      - bendbro 10y ago
        Love this comment, and based on my experience with tech journalists this is actually the case.
dgant 10y ago
This was a big cause of the death of CampusNetwork, which in 2004-5 was a credible competitor to Facebook. Because it encouraged for campus-wide conversation -- rather than just conversation with your immediate contacts -- it gravitated towards politically extreme conversation that dissuaded mainstream participation. Which is a shame, because it did act as a good way to meet new people, which isn't Facebook's forte.
- Apocryphon 10y ago
  Hasn't Facebook been gravitating towards politically extreme conversation ever since people started posting ideological memes on Newsfeeds and writing comments?
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Yeah, the thing that has to be understood, IMO, is that everyone will say they want to be part of a brave new forum where interesting ideas are discussed and there is a lot of intellectual stimulation. This is a complete and utter lie. People routinely tell it to themselves without realizing its blatant falsity. Most people find conflict unsettling and can handle it only in the smallest doses. People identify their ideas with themselves and take attacks or criticisms of them as personal slights. In written media like online discussion, these responses are amplified because there is little room for tone or other dampening/mitigating signals from the speaker, and the written form makes the harsh words seem more final and official. A slighted person will often feel the need to respond on the record, whereas in person they may have been more likely to dismiss the remark. Cognitive dissonance creates a powerful feeling of unease. When that signal is received, the common interpretation is to make some passing attempt to rebut, like "You know, it's not even worth the time", so that you feel like you won, and then to never return to the place that caused bad feelings. The reason that reddit has always been a big echo chamber and unable to really get mainstream adoption is because it has a fixed front page. This doesn't account for the differing mainstream tastes. reddit has a steady supply of atheistic young men because that's the audience that they appeal to when you load up reddit.com. Despite the lies they tell themselves so they can feel noble and open-minded, people DO NOT want to be challenged. They want their egos stroked. If confronted with an idea that seems contradictory to something important to their self-conception, they will immediately become defensive; this is true even among friends when it can sometimes be recovered, but strangers online have zero social capital to deploy to absorb this hit. For most, taking a position in a discussion is nothing more than a way to signal allegiance to a tribe. If your users do not have a way to ensure their experiences aligns with their tribal values and preferences, they will leave. This is important for tech entrepreneurs and people seeking to "bridge the gap". It's bigger than many people realize, and much bigger than people will willingly admit. Efforts in this direction must be baby steps, and no one should expect to perform a great reconciliation.
ben_jones 10y ago
How about checking your phone every five seconds even though you know you have no notifications for neuroticism? Stop picking on my internet forums.
LordHumungous 10y ago
> It is weirdos and neurotics that are most disposed to spending all their time posting online Uh.. hey... But seriously, I think it's also simple the case that an anonymous internet forum is a great place to vent your innermost feelings.
Apocryphon 10y ago
Having both been on the Something Awful forums and read some of the major stories there about the low points of the site's history and community dramas, this article makes sense to me. The reason why many forums, even "normal" ones about mothers, have mass social dysfunction because they're self-selecting communities.
cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
> It is weirdos and neurotics that are most disposed to spending all their time posting online This is not true. Every single human being has multiple different sides/personas depending on the context in which they engage. For example, many people think "Trolls" are some mythical category of assholes they will never run into in real life, but the thing is, everyone can act like a troll depending on the circumstance. This is why Twitter can't fix the spam problem. Because they think the goal is to eradicate this mythical group of people. But the reality is everyone on Twitter is in one way or another annoying to someone else, without even them realizing. I am probably much much busier person than OP in real life, but I still have time to post on HN. I am definitely not a weirdo and neurotic who has nothing better to do. I probably spend less time posting online than the OP spend time watch TV shows. The reason I say this is because without understanding WHO exactly "trolls" are, you will always lose. When you understand trolls are just ordinary people like yourself, only then you can find a way to deal with them. p.s. I have acted like a neurotic person on certain forums when I was in a desperate situation, and I am perfectly aware of that. That doesn't mean I am a weirdo who has nothing better to do. Anyone in those situations would probably behave that way too. Knowing that doesn't make it any less annoying, but my point is that I can sympathize, and I know that these people are not all weirdos.
- ryanmarsh 10y ago
  This doesn't sound the least bit nuerotic... /s
  - cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
    I get your "/s", and that is exactly my point
- themodelplumber 10y ago
  Hmm, I just realized that we should give trolls my wife's finger-wag and they'll stop.
- enentesinmyeyes 10y ago
  When they he says neurotic the author is probably not talking about people like you who occasionally take internet slapfights too seriously. They're probably talking about people like that dude on 4chan who wrote a 97 page document about another poster http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/622/581/94e.jpg http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/622/581/94e... http://per.vyrd.net/of/utv.pdf http://per.vyrd.net/of/utv.pdf
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
roganp 10y ago
This reminds me of an Atlantic article that I found quite disturbing : https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/12/a-new-way-to-be-mad/304671/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/12/a-new-w... It is about the origin pathological ideas and how the internet might make them more prevalent.
- blablabla123 10y ago
  Really interesting topic, I read the intro and the end. But the last paragraph seems to underline it: most of the people haven't seen a Psychologist or talked to anyone. I'm quite convinced that online communication is really Lo-Fi. Though I'm still wondering whether it does more harm than it does good. I can only speak for myself, over the last 10 years I decreased my online life a lot and I recommend others to do the same. (Apart from work, but I mean that's just coding stuff and mostly researching. ;)) Ironically there's a global trend in the last 10 years making "online" cool and most people spend many hours socializing online.
nonytoms 10y ago
We are part of a team consisting of highly efficient developers and hackers. Upgrade University Grades Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, Line, Skype Hack Delete unwanted online Pictures pand Videos on any website Remove Criminal Records Hack bank accounts Apps hacking MasterCard, Paypal, Bitcoin, WU, Money Gram with untraceable credit on it etc. We also develop hacked facebook, twitter, instagram, yahoo, gmail passwords etc. We do custom software and web development in php, java, asp.net etc. We have 100% records from our client as well as highest repeat hire rate. our work speak for ourselves, we provide a perfect software solution to all clients. We believe in mutual growing with client and hence we work as a technology partner and consultant for our clients. Contact us @Lulzsekhackinc@outlook.com or ICQ: 703132619 or WhatsApp:+14696660879 or Skype: Lulzsekhackinc@outlook.com
Tossrock 10y ago
A webcomic called Toothpaste For Dinner has my favorite take on this idea: http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/index.php?date=051810 http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/index.php?date=051810
abalashov 10y ago
If you’re a talented artist, you probably spend your time actually making art rather than discussing technique online. Top amateur athletes are too busy actually training and playing to spend five hours a day on a forum for their hobby. Is this always true? I mean, of course it's true at the extremes; if someone literally spends _all_ their waking hours posting on forums about X, they're probably not getting very much X done. But discussion and polemic is more complementary to some occupations and disciplines than others, one must acknowledge—as this article seemingly doesn't. Publishing academics spend a lot of time on rigourous and structured rebuttals of each other's theories, a kind of highly professional and esoteric Reddit with long bibliographies. They probably partake of some informal channels to soft-trial some of their positions and hone some of the thorny bits before pushing to production, so to speak. They might spend a lot of time on that. Attorneys learn how to write more eloquent and persuasive pleadings and briefs by way of practice. A lot of practice. Surely some of them chisel the background knowledge and social skills required to operate in their world online. If that's a serious learning tool, you're probably using it more than 15 minutes/day. You might even have a senior badge on some PHPBB legal board. A lot of skills can be learned or improved on the Internet by reading and participating in sometimes contentious discussions about them. The strong religion in motorcycle repair and boating forums isn't all puffery and neurotic wheel-spinning; a lot of the commentators are quite well-informed about the range of available componentry and DIY techniques, even if they sometimes bite each other's heads off in arguments about the One True Way to overhaul a marine toilet or which ape hangers are the best. The hours developers spend arguing about React vs. Angular on HN aren't necessarily wasted; some of the discussions are rich, vibrant and informative, and make both the writers and the readers better developers or technical managers. I myself learned a great deal about history and politics in high school by arguing heatedly with informed people online. If I were an aspiring politician or writer, expository writing in support of a particular ideological conviction would have legitimate value and relevance as a skill set, and this kind of exercise helps to hone it. It takes a certain kind of personality to devote a lot of energy to online discussions. Some people don't like to think and argue about methodology or meta- issues, or otherwise engage their analytical faculties very much when socialising. They just do. Good for them. However, this is a difference of style rather than substance. Everyone has to have "continuing education" of some description to remain fluent in their field. And yes, of course there's a limit beyond which pure theory and no practice lies for simple reasons of time and economics, but it just depends. So, I don't disagree with the fundamental premise, but as is so often the case, this article paints the online world with a broad brush.
htns 10y ago
Bland neuroticism makes itself viral. The threads are easy to come up with and everyone can chip in. The OP gets an anonymous confessional and the rest get to feel better about themselves. Those kinds of forums are top results because they minimize distress. Google having solid advice for every little thing would drive people neurotic.
chillingeffect 10y ago
All brilliantly stated. I would only add that it's not "all" participants in communities (on and offline), but archetypes, legends and hierarchies spring up espousing the "ultimate", perfect or essential ways of performing the activity... almost no one can or does live up to them. That confuses neophytes.... so don't be stymied by sage advice!
phoenixProgram 10y ago
what is wrong with people who write stories like this? just going around pointing fingers, screaming "NEUROTIC! NEUROTIC! GET HIM! NEUROTIC!" this is literally schoolyard bully level antics. it is nothing more than name calling, but the author wants to treat this juvenile name-calling with dignity by using psychology jargon. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU PSYCHO NEUROTIC?!?!" "HUH HUH HUH WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!" "WHY DO YOU USE THE INTERNET?" "ONLY NEUROTIC PEOPLE INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER ON THE INTERNET!" "HUH HUH HUH WHY DO YOU DO IT?" "ARE YOU A TERRORIST?" these people who just pick on people and call them names are worthless scum. they are worthless scum.

107 points by imartin2k 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

empressplay 10y ago

Blah blah blah, people with problems talk about them more. No shit.

dang 10y ago
Would you please not post like this here? We're trying for better: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html. If an article doesn't merit a substantive comment, it probably doesn't merit any comment.
- empressplay 10y ago
  My apologies. I didn't like some of the things the article inferred. I should have been more specific about that.

pella 10y ago

my favorite "game" Nicky Case: WE BECOME WHAT WE BEHOLD; a game about news cycles, vicious cycles, infinite cycles "ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴇᴅɪᴀ's vicious cycles. Here's the feedback loop: conflict → the media blows it up → even more conflict" [1] https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb ( need ~5min) [1] http://blog.ncase.me/we-become-what-we-behold-a-post-mortem/ http://blog.ncase.me/we-become-what-we-behold-a-post-mortem/

JBReefer 10y ago
Required reading on the matter: https://medium.com/@parkermolloy/5-things-the-media-does-to-manufacture-outrage-ba79125e1262 https://medium.com/@parkermolloy/5-things-the-media-does-to-...

Noumenon72 10y ago

Perhaps this is the reason that Dungeons and Dragons DM advice is so detailed and exhaustive that it would take hours to prepare each session, while actual D&D games with very little DM prep are usually still fun. I got the "I must shoot 10,000 free throws to be prepared" attitude about becoming a developer -- must know Linux, concurrency, all interview questions, salary negotiation, and so on. It was daunting but ultimately correct, I got the kind of job I wanted and doubt I could have done it without being neurotic about it. Or maybe I would have been fine and I'm still being neurotic and overdoing it. This article's perspective is helpful because "Remember that all this advice is coming from neurotics" was not something I took into account.

imgabe 10y ago

I think this could be extended to the mass media in general. Where do we get our information from? Journalists. What do journalists do? They write news articles. They don't actually do any of the things they write about, they only write. We very seldom (in comparison) get perspective from the people who are doing things - because they are too busy doing them to talk about it.

cpncrunch 10y ago
>We very seldom (in comparison) get perspective from the people who are doing things - because they are too busy doing them to talk about it. Actually, journalists interview these people.
- imgabe 10y ago
  And that interview is filtered through the journalist's perspective.
ceejayoz 10y ago
You have a really odd idea of how journalism functions.
- imgabe 10y ago
  Could you elaborate? Is it not written by journalists?
  - srssays 10y ago
    It is written by PR people, wire services and politicos. The journalist simply assembles the ready-made components into the lowest energy configuration.
    - bendbro 10y ago
      Love this comment, and based on my experience with tech journalists this is actually the case.

dgant 10y ago

This was a big cause of the death of CampusNetwork, which in 2004-5 was a credible competitor to Facebook. Because it encouraged for campus-wide conversation -- rather than just conversation with your immediate contacts -- it gravitated towards politically extreme conversation that dissuaded mainstream participation. Which is a shame, because it did act as a good way to meet new people, which isn't Facebook's forte.

Apocryphon 10y ago
Hasn't Facebook been gravitating towards politically extreme conversation ever since people started posting ideological memes on Newsfeeds and writing comments?
cookiecaper 10y ago
Yeah, the thing that has to be understood, IMO, is that everyone will say they want to be part of a brave new forum where interesting ideas are discussed and there is a lot of intellectual stimulation. This is a complete and utter lie. People routinely tell it to themselves without realizing its blatant falsity. Most people find conflict unsettling and can handle it only in the smallest doses. People identify their ideas with themselves and take attacks or criticisms of them as personal slights. In written media like online discussion, these responses are amplified because there is little room for tone or other dampening/mitigating signals from the speaker, and the written form makes the harsh words seem more final and official. A slighted person will often feel the need to respond on the record, whereas in person they may have been more likely to dismiss the remark. Cognitive dissonance creates a powerful feeling of unease. When that signal is received, the common interpretation is to make some passing attempt to rebut, like "You know, it's not even worth the time", so that you feel like you won, and then to never return to the place that caused bad feelings. The reason that reddit has always been a big echo chamber and unable to really get mainstream adoption is because it has a fixed front page. This doesn't account for the differing mainstream tastes. reddit has a steady supply of atheistic young men because that's the audience that they appeal to when you load up reddit.com. Despite the lies they tell themselves so they can feel noble and open-minded, people DO NOT want to be challenged. They want their egos stroked. If confronted with an idea that seems contradictory to something important to their self-conception, they will immediately become defensive; this is true even among friends when it can sometimes be recovered, but strangers online have zero social capital to deploy to absorb this hit. For most, taking a position in a discussion is nothing more than a way to signal allegiance to a tribe. If your users do not have a way to ensure their experiences aligns with their tribal values and preferences, they will leave. This is important for tech entrepreneurs and people seeking to "bridge the gap". It's bigger than many people realize, and much bigger than people will willingly admit. Efforts in this direction must be baby steps, and no one should expect to perform a great reconciliation.

ben_jones 10y ago

How about checking your phone every five seconds even though you know you have no notifications for neuroticism? Stop picking on my internet forums.

LordHumungous 10y ago

> It is weirdos and neurotics that are most disposed to spending all their time posting online Uh.. hey... But seriously, I think it's also simple the case that an anonymous internet forum is a great place to vent your innermost feelings.

Apocryphon 10y ago

Having both been on the Something Awful forums and read some of the major stories there about the low points of the site's history and community dramas, this article makes sense to me. The reason why many forums, even "normal" ones about mothers, have mass social dysfunction because they're self-selecting communities.

cocktailpeanuts 10y ago

> It is weirdos and neurotics that are most disposed to spending all their time posting online This is not true. Every single human being has multiple different sides/personas depending on the context in which they engage. For example, many people think "Trolls" are some mythical category of assholes they will never run into in real life, but the thing is, everyone can act like a troll depending on the circumstance. This is why Twitter can't fix the spam problem. Because they think the goal is to eradicate this mythical group of people. But the reality is everyone on Twitter is in one way or another annoying to someone else, without even them realizing. I am probably much much busier person than OP in real life, but I still have time to post on HN. I am definitely not a weirdo and neurotic who has nothing better to do. I probably spend less time posting online than the OP spend time watch TV shows. The reason I say this is because without understanding WHO exactly "trolls" are, you will always lose. When you understand trolls are just ordinary people like yourself, only then you can find a way to deal with them. p.s. I have acted like a neurotic person on certain forums when I was in a desperate situation, and I am perfectly aware of that. That doesn't mean I am a weirdo who has nothing better to do. Anyone in those situations would probably behave that way too. Knowing that doesn't make it any less annoying, but my point is that I can sympathize, and I know that these people are not all weirdos.

ryanmarsh 10y ago
This doesn't sound the least bit nuerotic... /s
- cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
  I get your "/s", and that is exactly my point
themodelplumber 10y ago
Hmm, I just realized that we should give trolls my wife's finger-wag and they'll stop.
enentesinmyeyes 10y ago
When they he says neurotic the author is probably not talking about people like you who occasionally take internet slapfights too seriously. They're probably talking about people like that dude on 4chan who wrote a 97 page document about another poster http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/622/581/94e.jpg http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/622/581/94e... http://per.vyrd.net/of/utv.pdf http://per.vyrd.net/of/utv.pdf

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

roganp 10y ago

This reminds me of an Atlantic article that I found quite disturbing : https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/12/a-new-way-to-be-mad/304671/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/12/a-new-w... It is about the origin pathological ideas and how the internet might make them more prevalent.

blablabla123 10y ago
Really interesting topic, I read the intro and the end. But the last paragraph seems to underline it: most of the people haven't seen a Psychologist or talked to anyone. I'm quite convinced that online communication is really Lo-Fi. Though I'm still wondering whether it does more harm than it does good. I can only speak for myself, over the last 10 years I decreased my online life a lot and I recommend others to do the same. (Apart from work, but I mean that's just coding stuff and mostly researching. ;)) Ironically there's a global trend in the last 10 years making "online" cool and most people spend many hours socializing online.

nonytoms 10y ago

We are part of a team consisting of highly efficient developers and hackers. Upgrade University Grades Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, Line, Skype Hack Delete unwanted online Pictures pand Videos on any website Remove Criminal Records Hack bank accounts Apps hacking MasterCard, Paypal, Bitcoin, WU, Money Gram with untraceable credit on it etc. We also develop hacked facebook, twitter, instagram, yahoo, gmail passwords etc. We do custom software and web development in php, java, asp.net etc. We have 100% records from our client as well as highest repeat hire rate. our work speak for ourselves, we provide a perfect software solution to all clients. We believe in mutual growing with client and hence we work as a technology partner and consultant for our clients. Contact us @Lulzsekhackinc@outlook.com or ICQ: 703132619 or WhatsApp:+14696660879 or Skype: Lulzsekhackinc@outlook.com

Tossrock 10y ago

A webcomic called Toothpaste For Dinner has my favorite take on this idea: http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/index.php?date=051810 http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/index.php?date=051810

abalashov 10y ago

If you’re a talented artist, you probably spend your time actually making art rather than discussing technique online. Top amateur athletes are too busy actually training and playing to spend five hours a day on a forum for their hobby. Is this always true? I mean, of course it's true at the extremes; if someone literally spends _all_ their waking hours posting on forums about X, they're probably not getting very much X done. But discussion and polemic is more complementary to some occupations and disciplines than others, one must acknowledge—as this article seemingly doesn't. Publishing academics spend a lot of time on rigourous and structured rebuttals of each other's theories, a kind of highly professional and esoteric Reddit with long bibliographies. They probably partake of some informal channels to soft-trial some of their positions and hone some of the thorny bits before pushing to production, so to speak. They might spend a lot of time on that. Attorneys learn how to write more eloquent and persuasive pleadings and briefs by way of practice. A lot of practice. Surely some of them chisel the background knowledge and social skills required to operate in their world online. If that's a serious learning tool, you're probably using it more than 15 minutes/day. You might even have a senior badge on some PHPBB legal board. A lot of skills can be learned or improved on the Internet by reading and participating in sometimes contentious discussions about them. The strong religion in motorcycle repair and boating forums isn't all puffery and neurotic wheel-spinning; a lot of the commentators are quite well-informed about the range of available componentry and DIY techniques, even if they sometimes bite each other's heads off in arguments about the One True Way to overhaul a marine toilet or which ape hangers are the best. The hours developers spend arguing about React vs. Angular on HN aren't necessarily wasted; some of the discussions are rich, vibrant and informative, and make both the writers and the readers better developers or technical managers. I myself learned a great deal about history and politics in high school by arguing heatedly with informed people online. If I were an aspiring politician or writer, expository writing in support of a particular ideological conviction would have legitimate value and relevance as a skill set, and this kind of exercise helps to hone it. It takes a certain kind of personality to devote a lot of energy to online discussions. Some people don't like to think and argue about methodology or meta- issues, or otherwise engage their analytical faculties very much when socialising. They just do. Good for them. However, this is a difference of style rather than substance. Everyone has to have "continuing education" of some description to remain fluent in their field. And yes, of course there's a limit beyond which pure theory and no practice lies for simple reasons of time and economics, but it just depends. So, I don't disagree with the fundamental premise, but as is so often the case, this article paints the online world with a broad brush.

htns 10y ago

Bland neuroticism makes itself viral. The threads are easy to come up with and everyone can chip in. The OP gets an anonymous confessional and the rest get to feel better about themselves. Those kinds of forums are top results because they minimize distress. Google having solid advice for every little thing would drive people neurotic.

chillingeffect 10y ago

All brilliantly stated. I would only add that it's not "all" participants in communities (on and offline), but archetypes, legends and hierarchies spring up espousing the "ultimate", perfect or essential ways of performing the activity... almost no one can or does live up to them. That confuses neophytes.... so don't be stymied by sage advice!

phoenixProgram 10y ago

what is wrong with people who write stories like this? just going around pointing fingers, screaming "NEUROTIC! NEUROTIC! GET HIM! NEUROTIC!" this is literally schoolyard bully level antics. it is nothing more than name calling, but the author wants to treat this juvenile name-calling with dignity by using psychology jargon. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU PSYCHO NEUROTIC?!?!" "HUH HUH HUH WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!" "WHY DO YOU USE THE INTERNET?" "ONLY NEUROTIC PEOPLE INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER ON THE INTERNET!" "HUH HUH HUH WHY DO YOU DO IT?" "ARE YOU A TERRORIST?" these people who just pick on people and call them names are worthless scum. they are worthless scum.