I rarely feel attacked when I talk with people in person. And we all take people feelings into consideration enough so no one is trying to attack anyone.
I was not actively commenting on social media since I was 13. But when I joined Lemmy i saw the statistics only 1% of people are actively posting and commenting on social media. And since I knew I was in 99% of people who are only consuming and really wanted Lemmy to take off I tried to be more active.
But now I find myself way too often attacked and attacking. And I always judged people that are attacking others on Xitter or Facebook.
there is nuance in personal interactions that is stripped away via text so it’s very easy to type something you think is perfectly innocuous in spoken word that doesn’t translate at all and because you know what you mean the return attacks don’t make any sense. The only way to stay sane in these environments is to be as objective as possible and be prepared to take on new information and be wrong.
all that aside, if someone is personally attacking you they aren’t worth any time beyond hitting block, and the quicker you get at it the better your online experience.
Good point. I will add that on the internet you are not even sure the person is a native English speaker. Which add another barrier.
And now that I think about it, they may be even cultural differences that can have an impact on subjects like politics.
All of that will some groups try to brainwash us into buying their products or their hateful ideology.
But there is something I liked about the old Reddit and here on Lemmy/Mastodon is that we still can some self introspection like Op did