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If people would interact with others as they would do face to face. For whatever reason, we are so quick to forget the person at the other end. You'll see people complain or discuss real people with literally no empathy and it can be mind boggling at times.
This is sadly so true. I think part of it too is that text is a poor medium for expression at times. For example, it's harder to read sarcasm.
I find this to be less of a problem in less formal spaces. When typos, capitalization, and memes all get incorporated into the dialect, sarcasm and other nuance comes across much more readily. See also: Tumblr.
I suspect that sort of dialect wouldn't be as comprehensible here though, because of the greater diversity in demographics here than Tumblr or my small closed group chats with friends. Here on Lemmy, I try to mitigate this by giving the benefit of the doubt and never ever feeding the trolls.
(Does downvoting a troll count as feeding it, because it gives them attention? I don't want to risk it, so I usually pass them by, but I'm curious as to people's consensus here.)
If people would interact with others as they would do face to face.
Man, I'd never say anything online if I did that.
Part of the challenge of social media is that it leads you to interact with many more people than you ever could in normal life.
While the vast majority of people are delightful, there are significant numbers of people with whom I wouldn't want to interact, either face-to-face or online.
One thing I should get better at is avoiding engagement with those people online who I wouldn't benefit from interacting with.
I don't talk to the crazy person ranting on the street, why would I do it online?
Absolutely.
This is precisely the problem, yes. As a mod in my one sub, this is most often the only time I had to intervene -- when the tone of the conversation got rude, insulting, disrespectful. I would always think to myself, "Is that how you'd talk to that guy in person??". Mind boggling, indeed.