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Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues

unherd.com

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Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues

#41

Post by wpietri »

darkerside wrote: post #32
wpietri wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your point, but I think you take it too far here: > if there are never any negative indicators that you are the problem, rather than everyone else… there is a mathematically insignificant chance you will ever realize something might be wrong A lot of my self-improvement has come not because of explicit negative feedback, but through paying attention to people and reflecting on who I want to be in the world. Th…

What you may not realize is, some people literally don't know how to do that, or that it's even something anyone would ever do. If you dropped into an alien culture, you'd need to learn a new raft of different signals all over again.

Sure! Everybody's born not knowing how to do that. Or understanding most social signals. Some of us learn. As I said, people have all sorts of ways of dealing with the world.

Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues

#42

Post by okareaman »

nickysielicki wrote: post #33

This sort of wishy washy argument (seemingly accepted by generally educated/reasonable people on HN) is the reason that society is so scientifically illiterate. It has nice sounding arguments that embed themselves into your thought patterns but zero real substance. Articles like this are how you get hordes of people to believe something without cause. The next time you see someone act "bad" online, you'll be able to…

You don't say what is wishy washy or give any supporting evidence to your assertion that HN users seemingly fall for such arguments or how "nice sounding" arguments embed themselves into our thought patterns to control us or how these wishy washy nice sounding arguments lead us to dismiss people. You sound like you may have psychological issues and I say this as a non-neurotypical (bipolar)

Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues

#43

Post by Daishiman »

slibhb wrote: post #20

To me, the interesting question here is whether symptoms of BPD (or mental illness more generally) might confer an advantage when it comes to building a following on social media. For example, catastrophizing seems to be a staple on the many popular social media accounts.

Having dated people with BPD, it certainly created an emotional roller coaster that makes the highs really high; normal relations can even seem boringly stable after that.

Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues

#44

Post by Y_Y »

They are missing the wood for the trees. Online behaviour in general is rooted in psychological issues. Well-adjusted mentally healthy people just participate in society normally, they don't sit in front of a terminal for a year inventing some amazing new way of communicating over computer networks, or expounding the modern equivalent of Athenian philosophy on message boards, or obsessing over entries in distributed databases.

Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues

#45

Post by rbanffy »

bingidingi wrote: post #26
slver wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we can't discuss trans people as a category and their correlations? There's a line between avoiding harmful stereotypes that lead to unfair discrimination and willful ignorance or misrepresentation of facts in service of political correctness. It's extremely hard to say where this line is. But we still have to be aware of its existence.

I'm not saying it can't or shouldn't be discussed, but the author was so conscious of the correlations made in the article that they felt the need to literally write that they're not trying to make those correlations. There's no shortage of people linking transgendered people and mental illness, just as there's no shortage of people linking homosexuality to mental illness. If you're not trying to strengthen those ass…

Considering the amount of discrimination, harassment, and hostility these people endure every single day, I would be surprised if they remained perfectly sane.

Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues

#46

Post by jandrese »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #11

The article's actual title is "Are Twitter trolls mentally ill?" It makes me want to talk about how the concept of the troll has evolved from something specific to something very general. I glanced through the article and none of the behaviors it listed are what I'd consider troll behaviors. They're just the patterns of mild mental illness. Trolls, in my old-man's definition, are almost a type of hunter, looking to b…

I've seen news articles about "internet trolls" who followed a neighbor around and sat outside of her window but also looked at her Facebook page. The term has already lost its meaning.

Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues

#48

Post by verytrivial »

Trolls create anger and conflict and conflict drives engagement. But that is as nothing compared to the engagement you get from public spectacles of righteous indignation. Social media breeds a special sort narcissistic positive feedback loop and it turns out a very small amount of validation is all that is required to set people off.

But trolls usually know they're trolls. On the other hand take for example Twitter user Oli London [1]. I can no longer tell parody from sincere in this "influencers" persona, but wow, does it drive engagement. Is this guy ok? There are thousands of accounts cheering him/them and many others on.

[1] https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV

Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues

#49

Post by emerged »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #17
chrismeller wrote: post #10

This is one of the main reasons I feel like the current culture of never disagreeing with anyone so you can never possibly offend anyone is ultimately toxic. As a person with (currently treated and doing fine) psychological issues I don’t expect any single comment to get through to you, but if there are never any negative indicators that you are the problem, rather than everyone else… there is a mathematically insign…

> if there are never any negative indicators that you are the problem, rather than everyone else… there is a mathematically insignificant chance you will ever realize something might be wrong. Then again, depending on the psychological issues it doesn't matter how many negative indicators there are that you are the problem. Some people just seem unable to accept they have issues, or unable to correctly process that p…

Narcissists consider both positive and negative interactions to be positive, and narcissism has been on the rise for years owed primarily to social media.

Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues

#50

Post by tus89 »

dbrueck wrote: post #3
tus89 wrote: post #2

Did you know the background of unherd? If you did you might not have regard for this.

I don't know the background - tell me more. Also, your comment comes across as an ad hominem attack, not sure if I'm just misreading it though.

It was created to promulgate extremist Christian-right propaganda - the kind that is "un-heard" in the mainstream media in the UK apparently.

There are a lot of such organizations that don't openly declare their ideological background, and funding sources.

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