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Well, a short opinion piece about a complicated topic. > In 2017, Deb Roy, director of the M.I.T. Center for Constructive Communication and former chief media

Well, a short opinion piece about a complicated topic. > In 2017, Deb Roy, director of the M.I.T. Center for Constructive Communication and former chief media scientist at Twitter, held informal meetings in small towns to talk to people about social media. Several times, people told him they’d given up speaking to neighbors or others in town after seeing them express their opinions online. People have said the verbal part is just a small percentage of real life communication, I wonder if just reading someone's thoughts in text and not actually having a conversation contributes to this. But I guess verbal conversations are very lossy and when someone writes it down, you get their clear thoughts, and that can be good or bad (e.g. if they reveal themselves to be deeply racist...).

Double_a_92 5y ago
Social media just gives people occasions to talk about everything, and then everyone can see what they talked about. While in real life you e.g. just never give your neighbour the occasion to talk about politics with you.
beardyw 5y ago
People have not learned to self moderate online. Maybe in time they will, or maybe following generations will. Read back what you wrote, then delete it.
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giorgioz 5y ago
Yes I think too much context, feelings and empathy is not transmitted on the web. If you meet a friend on the street and he seem sad you won't be bragging about your awesome vacation or promotion. Humans automatically tone their statements to match the receivers. We might think we speak absolutely the same way to everyone but in practice is not like that. We have the desire to fit and be liked and we adapt our language to be enjoyable for the receiver. Online you are not aware of your receiver and it's very easy to displease dozens of people at once which you would not do if you would speak with them one-by-one in person.
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Double_a_92 5y ago

Social media just gives people occasions to talk about everything, and then everyone can see what they talked about. While in real life you e.g. just never give your neighbour the occasion to talk about politics with you.

beardyw 5y ago

People have not learned to self moderate online. Maybe in time they will, or maybe following generations will. Read back what you wrote, then delete it.

deleted 5y ago
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giorgioz 5y ago

Yes I think too much context, feelings and empathy is not transmitted on the web. If you meet a friend on the street and he seem sad you won't be bragging about your awesome vacation or promotion. Humans automatically tone their statements to match the receivers. We might think we speak absolutely the same way to everyone but in practice is not like that. We have the desire to fit and be liked and we adapt our language to be enjoyable for the receiver. Online you are not aware of your receiver and it's very easy to displease dozens of people at once which you would not do if you would speak with them one-by-one in person.

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