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You lose a lot of nuance in written text and its harder to infer tone (especially for non-native speakers), so written discussions can often come across more ho

by entuno 3y ago

You lose a lot of nuance in written text and its harder to infer tone (especially for non-native speakers), so written discussions can often come across more hostile than spoken ones (even in a workplace between people who know each other). But I think a lot of it comes down to the freedom from consequences on the Internet. If people acted in real life like they do on Twitter or Facebook then there would be repercussions - whether social or legal or even physical. A lot of people hold views that are not considered socially acceptable - so they keep those views to themselves in public. But anonymity gives them the confidence to share and act upon. In terms of how you can fix it, I don't think you really can without making huge sacrifices. It's hard to change people's views, and stripping anonymity from the Internet would have significant downsides (and be technically very difficult). Although as is often the case, XKCD proposes an interesting suggestion: https://xkcd.com/481/ https://xkcd.com/481/

keepamovin 3y ago
That's very true. There's so many other escalatory/de-escalatory signals you can send across many channels in Face 2 Face or even voice. I think it's also changing what's "socially acceptable" which in general I think is a good thing, by virtue of the internet making society more permeable to ideas. I don't want to change people's views...only the way they express them. I think a lot of it is maybe growing pains...hopefully we will all grow out of bad behavior online over time. Hahaha. I like that XKCD! Funny I use something similar when I'm suffering from a comment and don't know how to reply. It probably sounds ridiculous, but I will record myself reading the other person's comment, and then I will play that back, as if it were a conversation, and record myself speaking my response. Then transcribe that into the text of the internet! Haha I just find there's such a huge difference between how I express myself naturally in voice and in text, and in situations where I'll get stuck in text, I'm free in voice. It just simplifies things a lot! :)

by entuno 3y ago

keepamovin 3y ago

That's very true. There's so many other escalatory/de-escalatory signals you can send across many channels in Face 2 Face or even voice. I think it's also changing what's "socially acceptable" which in general I think is a good thing, by virtue of the internet making society more permeable to ideas. I don't want to change people's views...only the way they express them. I think a lot of it is maybe growing pains...hopefully we will all grow out of bad behavior online over time. Hahaha. I like that XKCD! Funny I use something similar when I'm suffering from a comment and don't know how to reply. It probably sounds ridiculous, but I will record myself reading the other person's comment, and then I will play that back, as if it were a conversation, and record myself speaking my response. Then transcribe that into the text of the internet! Haha I just find there's such a huge difference between how I express myself naturally in voice and in text, and in situations where I'll get stuck in text, I'm free in voice. It just simplifies things a lot! :)