I used to have this problem all the time, I think it’s pretty normal. I did many years of therapy, and part of what I got out of that was an understanding of how people deal with pain and anger. The best way to change someone’s mind is to try to empathize with their position and show your understanding. Once you share context with them, you can gently explain why you feel the way you do. Sometimes, you do this and find that the other person’s point of view is a more accurate reflection of your values and you change your mind instead.

Don’t do this with bad faith actors though. just block them.

I used to have this problem all the time, I think it’s pretty normal. I did many years of therapy, and part of what I got out of that was an understanding of how people deal with pain and anger. The best way to change someone’s mind is to try to empathize with their position and show your understanding. Once you share context with them, you can gently explain why you feel the way you do. Sometimes, you do this and find that the other person’s point of view is a more accurate reflection of your values and you change your mind instead.

Don’t do this with bad faith actors though. just block them.

It might be worth it to consider what tone you, yourself, are placing on the text you’re reading. Words being spoken in anger or not will look exactly the same when they’re written down.

Argue bad. Discuss good.

There’s a couple things at play here when you talk to people online.

Ultimately, there’s a difference between feeling attacked and being attacked. Both are common in online discussions.

Why do people attack people?

The anonymity and distance of the internet makes it easier for people to share strong opinions - for better or worse. There’s a certain amount of psychology around the design of social media that pushes people towards confrontation.

Sometimes aggression is the default state for people. Depending on your world view that might be either sad or necessary.

That said, I believe there’s a difference between a justified attack and an unjustified one. If someone is spreading hate, we all owe it to the community to fuck that person up with our words. If someone shares a harmless opinion then there isn’t much call for a personal attack.

Why do I feel attacked?

If you feel attacked on the internet, there’s ultimately two possibilities: you’re being attacked or you’re mistaken. For the sake of this section, let’s say you’re mistaken.

Non-verbal communication is an essential part of communication between humans, and is something that’s hard to replicate in text. Ultimately, our non-verbal cues set an expected tone.

Sometimes when writing we recognize this and use a tonal indicator to set expectations. Emoji 🙄, gestures *rolls eyes* and, appending flags /s are all ways that we might set tone. These three examples all indicate “sarcasm” which for many people seems to be the default way to express themselves.

Sarcasm in particular is problematic because it often inverts the meaning of what was said. The phrase, “oh yeah, brilliant idea” has opposite interpretations if you’re being sarcastic. Sometimes the writer assumes the reader will know what they intended because they were feeling sarcastic when they typed it. Of course, as a reader we have no way of knowing what the writer’s feelings were at the time of writing.

Another element at play here is that a good deal of conversation on the internet is debate. Some people equate disagreement with condemnation, so if your feelings are hurt by that it’s common to lash out. Many debates on the internet start civilly enough and then deteriorate to name calling and cursing in short order. It’s wise to try to be the bigger person and assume no malice, because once it gets out it’s hard to put back.

Statistics and Bias

You probably had the right idea that only about 1% of users are active commenters. Similar to that, there’s also a phenomenon where the most vocal (and often inflammatory) users represent a similarly small portion of the group.

Our brains are evolved for survival, so they pay special attention to negative stimuli. Basically, they’re always looking for trouble, and if you’re looking for trouble you’re likely to find it.

What this ultimately means is that we remember the bad things far more memorably than the good things. It also means that even if a small percentage of people are attacking others, because they dominate the conversation we start to believe that everyone carries that opinion. But as you point out, 99% of users aren’t even commenting, so we really don’t have a good grasp on what the larger population is like.

It also means that if you exercise your block list, you don’t have to put in too much work to remove the most hateful people from your feed.

Closing

Anyway, I think you have the right idea. It sounds like you don’t go looking for fights.

I try to keep a similar philosophy. If I disagree with someone then I’ll seek to empathize or educate. However, if someone is vocal about my erasure or directing hate and violence towards people then I’ll let them have it. I figure those people are looking for trouble and by golly I’ll give it to them - it’s always morally correct to punch a nazi.

That’s a terrible opinion and you are dumb for thinking it!!1!

Normal, yes; healthy, no.

Lots of people here missing the “and attacking” part.

Breathe, chill. That commenter you’re about to yell at is just another idiot, like you. We’re all just idiots bored on the internet. Relax, it’s not that deep.

Also:
NO, FUCK YOOUUUUUUU

Yes, unfortunately, and it’s healthy to recognize that. Good on ya.

I would say… yes! you never know who you are really talking to, so I would never take anything personal someone says to me online, no matter what was said to me.

these are just words on a sceen that can be written by someone who is unwell mentally, as normal people don’t bring other people down during a discussion.

it takes awhile to get used to this, but once you do, the good conversations you have online will (hopefully) outshine the bad ones. good luck!

A large part of growing up with social media is learning how to effectively use your emotions in a way that assists you rather than hindering you. Passion and anger are way too close together, it can be really hard to separate them. Passion is very helpful when motivating yourself to write in a compelling way. Unfortunately, it’s something that can best be learned through practice. The good news is the first step is recognizing that it is a problem, so you have started. The bad news is, you won’t be good at it for a while still, but keep trying anyway.

Many of us actually posting have either too much time on our hands, care about something deeply, or don’t care that much and just want to troll. Throw that together into one pot and you get a lot of attacks. It doesn’t help that you don’t see the person and many people don’t understand how different communication is without body language.

So, yes, I think it’s easy to feel attacked. The harder part is not to attack and most of us fail that, which is why the web is often so toxic. Personally, I try to care less and block more. Someone calls you a braindead nincompoop? Either block and call them an idiot off-screen, or leave a snarky message and then block. At least that’s what I do, and I forget about what happened like 5 minutes later.

There’s a loud toxic minority online. The block feature is best friend.

When I start to feel irked I imagine it’s Colin Robinson on the other side so there’s no reason to engage.

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.