Our access to crazy/strange/rude behavior online: Internet influence and how to deal?

[1still_waters]

Before we had mass access to the Internet with message boards/social media/email, it was less common to encounter unfiltered crazy/strange/rude thought patterns and behavior. I mean yes we all encountered it, but it wasn't encountered on such a large scale.

People in non-Internet life tend to have a better "filter" before they speak and act.
Also, our circle of influence is more contained in non-Internet life.
Hence encountering unfiltered crazy/strange/rude thought patterns and behavior is not as common.
This standard may not apply if you're in law enforcement, mental health, etc.

With the growth of the Internet, our access to crazy/strange/rude behavior has been increased greatly.
One can use social media or a message board and literally spend hours and hours drenching their mind in all sorts of strange/crazy/rude behavior and thought patterns.

We hear the horror stories of the "Twittersphere".
Stories of millions upon millions of people saying things they would NEVER say in "real life".


How has this shift in access to such things influenced you?
Has it had a good influence or bad influence?
Has it caused you to interpret reality and human behavior differently?

Have you become more jaded?
If yes, is that justified, or has online contact given you a distorted view of human behavior?

Will you take steps to change if it has had a bad influence on you?
What steps will you take?

Should it be taken into consideration that online formats for socializing may be magnets for certain behaviors and thought patterns you wouldn't encounter in "real life"?

How do you deal with all of these things?

 

[Donkeyfish07]

I don't notice much of a difference honestly. I see people trolling just as much offline, although they may bite their tounge more so than online when it comes to personal attacks.

 

[1still_waters]

I don't notice much of a difference honestly. I see people trolling just as much offline, although they may bite their tounge more so than online when it comes to personal attacks.

Lol describe your circle of influence.
It sounds very interesting.

 

[Donkeyfish07]

Lol describe your circle of influence.
It sounds very interesting.

Ha ha, I live in a small town in a backwoods state. Everyone doesn't literally know everyone but it's pretty close to that. Lots of trolls/instigators abound. It can't be compared to the Internet in the most literal sense but crazy and rude behavior isn't uncommon around here......strange behavior as well (Like a guy recently got high on bath salts, which is a synthetic drug that isn't illegal because it was chemically designed not to include anything the government has already banned.........and he burned another guys house down because he was so whacked out of his mind on it).

Not the same as the internet, but I don't really think people tend to be less negative offline.

 

[Fenner]

I try to be more careful. I had a bad experience one time on Facebook. But hopefully my bad experience helped someone locate a pedophile.

My friend plays a ton of games on FB and she will friend people she plays games with. I got a friend request from someone and the name seemed familiar so I accepted. Then I looked at his page and there was a horrible picture (I won't get into detail) of someone and a child. Anyhow I reported it to FB. In a matter of minutes the picture was gone. I told the man that he had a horrible picture on his page and if it wasn't him he needs to check into it. I unfriended and blocked him. I told my friend and asked her to please be more aware of who she friends. I hope she took that lesson into account and deleted some strangers.

That was scary, plus you know chatting and someone you don't know PM's you, I find that odd. I'm a stranger I don't do that. You just have to be aware and careful. That isn't just on line be careful in real life too.

You must watch who you PM with. The only teen's I would have conversations with are my nephew's and Nieces. You have to be so careful.

 

[BananaPie]

LOL.

Yeah, when folks have been minding their Christian business in the middle of nowhere, Elmore, Oklahoma, and they go online, like totally, it becomes obvious who are Trolls on psych meds; who are Trolls not taking their meds, and who are Troll desperately needing to be on meds, or committed to a hospital ward.

Trolls have become their own outcast culture desperately wanting fellowship with the very folks they troll, which reminds me of the Peter & Gordon song...

[video=youtube;WjIwmoASnxg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjIwmoASnxg[/video]

 

[Lecrae]

How has this shift in access to such things influenced you?

I find it hard to trust people. And I find that since the explosion of social media, EVERYONE has to have an opinion, even if it's not in the slightest credible. Sometimes I feel that less words can have a greater impact.

The shift of access of the internet in general has impacted me in my interpersonal communication greatly. I find it hard communicating with words because I'm used to thinking a while before typing them out, but in real life you don't have that time to think, therefore I usually don't speak or think of things after the conversation has ended. Because of my brain being rewired by the internet, it has impacted how many friends I have in real life vs. how many friends I have online. I find it hard to express myself in real life.

Has it had a good influence or bad influence?

Both. Bad on interpersonal real life communication. Good because the expanse of knowledge. But the expanse of knowledge can also be a bad thing, because instead of remembering things you can always just google them and forget about them again. So the internet could impact the ability to build long-term memories.

Has it caused you to interpret reality and human behavior differently?

Most certainly. I can't think of an example right now, but it sure has.

Have you become more jaded?

Yep.

If yes, is that justified, or has online contact given you a distorted view of human behavior?

The internet has a great potential to distort human behavior in the minds of many. I believe it has in my mind, and I'm not sure if it's possible to undo.

Should it be taken into consideration that online formats for socializing may be magnets for certain behaviors and thought patterns you wouldn't encounter in "real life"?

Most definitely. My social online personality is a lot different than my social real life personality.

 

[GaryA]

Should it be taken into consideration that online formats for socializing may be magnets for certain behaviors and thought patterns you wouldn't encounter in "real life"?

Most definitely. My social online personality is a lot different than my social real life personality.

Do we "manufacture" our able-to-instantly-modify-at-will personality according to the environment we find ourselves in? Or, do we merely "display" selected parts of our unable-to-instantly-modify-at-will personality according to the environment we find ourselves in? Or, is it a somewhere-in-between combination of the two...?

 

[Liamson]

Before we had mass access to the Internet with message boards/social media/email, it was less common to encounter unfiltered crazy/strange/rude thought patterns and behavior. I mean yes we all encountered it, but it wasn't encountered on such a large scale.

People in non-Internet life tend to have a better "filter" before they speak and act.
Also, our circle of influence is more contained in non-Internet life.
Hence encountering unfiltered crazy/strange/rude thought patterns and behavior is not as common.
This standard may not apply if you're in law enforcement, mental health, etc.

With the growth of the Internet, our access to crazy/strange/rude behavior has been increased greatly.
One can use social media or a message board and literally spend hours and hours drenching their mind in all sorts of strange/crazy/rude behavior and thought patterns.

We hear the horror stories of the "Twittersphere".
Stories of millions upon millions of people saying things they would NEVER say in "real life".


How has this shift in access to such things influenced you?
Has it had a good influence or bad influence?
Has it caused you to interpret reality and human behavior differently?

Have you become more jaded?
If yes, is that justified, or has online contact given you a distorted view of human behavior?

Will you take steps to change if it has had a bad influence on you?
What steps will you take?

Should it be taken into consideration that online formats for socializing may be magnets for certain behaviors and thought patterns you wouldn't encounter in "real life"?

How do you deal with all of these things?

When I first started getting involved on the internet it was probably 2003-2005 with MySpace Chat, specifically the Christian Rooms and stuff.

It was lively. There was no Moderators. Trolls would Flood a lot but, it was really intense.

I enjoyed "Cut and Paste" -ing scripture and generally talking about Christ online with people. But this graduated me into a new pond, with bigger fish and I was ill prepared for it. I went from the Top of the Food Chain to the bottom.

I just thought that if I knew the stories in the Bible, had some scripture memorized that was enough. But what I was lacking was the critical thinking skills to answer the questions that people were asking.

I didn't realize that I was Trolling genuine questions with Cut and Paste Christianity.




Then the way of the Master stuff made the rounds among my people, from like 2005-2006 ish. I thought it was really great BUT, it felt scripted and cut and pastey too. Which in a way its suppose to, until a person has it practiced and can get the intricacies down.


Then I found Stickam and started to confront the Militant Atheist Community. And once again I was over my head.



But I found someone to show me how to think.

 

[Praus]

How do you deal with all of these things?

Gauge function.



Walter Alter: List of Recalibrations

[link not provided, TL;DR]

1. Gauge function is the highest order of cognition in a total field.

3. Technology is inherently democratizing. The popularization of technophobia will be increasingly perceived to be against the best interests of humanity. In dense information fields fear is dissipated when full attention can be applied to success in problem solving. Technology supplies the tools for amplifying intelligence to every citizen. The economics of mass production dissolves hierarchies of privilege. Technology is the sharing of created wealth, not the concentration of exploited wealth. Technology requires an educated work force in the production end. Under feudalism, divisions of labor were decided upon by tradition, birthright, wealth, privilege, etc., and resulted in caste system boundaries that tended to freeze the evolution of intelligence, hence the tendency of all pre-capitalist societies to collapse. Chattle control of technology is now an historic futility. The genie is out of the bottle. Human knowledge has passed the threshold where it may now self-amplify at a geometrically accelerating rate rather than at the pre-electronic, pre-TV linear rate.

10. Problem solving is very simple given enough information. The facts usually sort themselves out into necessity fields and mental effort is potentially freed up to pursue more and more pleasure of creativity. This is art. We are going to have to learn how to operate with freedom of choice within an incredibly dense global information matrix. The densest personal info matrix is the visual one. The human retina is capable of differentiating about 2 million color hues and intensities and probably a larger number of shapes, spatial attitudes, distances and motions. We mainly use only a small portion of the visual field at any one time, a pencil thin cone of maximum attention, and we see as we read, in a scanning manner. This leaves the peripheral visual field almost unused, merely a cue-up function; like hearing – an attention director. Expansion of peripheral apperception is desirable because it allows a wider field of view for the simultaneous comparative gauging of visual info which will, in turn, amplify that same potential within the memory and projective areas of the mind. In short, we can make parallel processing abilities accessible to consciousness. One can get a taste of this ability by setting two TV sets side by side, tuning in two different stations with audio up on both and concentrating on getting the gist of both programs simultaneously. Within ten minutes you should be catching on.

 

[Praus]

Trolls have become their own outcast culture desperately wanting fellowship with the very folks they troll, ...

This post made me sad.

If anyone is seeking fellowship here on CC please join us in the Prayer chat room, I promise you it's very welcoming with zero clique-ishness and you'll get to pray together with your brothers and sisters.

It can be a profoundly healing place to visit.

 

[Jullianna]

If people behaved offline as they do online there would be a lot more people being punched in the face. For some reason when people turn on a computer they believe themselves to be entering a world where common decency and manners have no place. A place where anyone crossing their path is a target for whatever completely unrelated matter ticked them off that day. People who would never become bullies offline sudden grow huge fangs (there's another word for it, but I'm trying to be polite here ). Even Christians. It's as if they think God doesn't see what they are doing if they do it online.

 

[secularhermit]

Hi, Mr Water! I have clicked "LIKE" on two of your threads mentioning interesting issues like these and I thank you for that: They teach and also help to moderate.

Hmm!
In considering some of questions you asked, internet served me A LOT to drain my frustrations when I was in the process of divorce, years ago. I was hurt and I guess I was hurting people for those thigs I said and, but the way, GOD sent me a Catholic friend who helped me to be healed and she, with love, helped me to overcome that sorrow, bitterness, and we became dear friends (we never met personally, but that helped me more than I guess).

On the internet I learned to know me deeply or, if this wasn't like that, my emotional mind was shaped because of the personal or emotional intercourse I got with people online reading my stuff, poetry, blogs or whatever rubbish thin I wrote. I kept files of those things I considered important and, being in the process of being divorced, feeling myself despised, etc., I knew I was guilty of many things and knew I WAS NOT THE ONLY PERSON HURT, so I started to help others same way I have been helped by my friend who stood "close" and willing to help me DURING YEARS.

On the internet I knwe whom I was, more better than interracting personally with the people I knew.

On line I met a couple of persons I got too involved: For love, for infatuation; but I lacked those experiences, because I was more mundane and my life started to chance by 1994, when I was married and interacting with Christlike people I NEVER KNEW personally, up to the day Jesus helped me see and interact with them.

Regarding my being grinchy or grumpy, I don't try to hide or lie. Today, in the morning, a man came to visit my mother and give her his greeting for a new year (a thing I don't see as many). I approached him to say hello and, after few minutes, I couldn't stop myself from telling him my opinion on the several times I have seen him talking to drug consumers, rejected people who live in the streets, homeless, because he is able to feel sympathy and dislikes injustice, and we shared a couple of things I never heard before (those I recommended him to write). He is not Christian, but have lived with those he named "Christian". He wants to know the meaning of life (many things) but he is the type of honest person that will tell you, openly: "I am homosexual and got AIDS". I like honesty of him. I think he is brave, a man, because he doesn't lie like the average people I have known and, today, GOD gave me the chance to preach him (a little).


I'm telling you this personal thing because it happened today (Jan 1st, 2014). I'm telling you I admire people like him and, of course, he knows I won't touch him by hugging or shaking my hands with him (I told him and behaved that way I said) but he left my mother's home so HAPPY, hugging her, feeling he wasn't rejected for the person he is and he understood why I could be far from his arms, because I try to give no chance to mistakes. In fact, I told my mother: "Hey! This is the first time you are being hugged by REAL MAN, mother. Lucky you!" and we laughed for a while. That MAN was happy and told us thing I wish I could blog, but I insisted on him to write down his story because, as I said to him: "If I had a record of you talking, if I had the mic in front of you, you will not tell all those things so freely. But LIFE deserves knowing you the way you are, what things you have done in life. I don't care you like men, except you like me, because I don't like you" (He laughed at this).

Well! I'd better stop this. People are what they are. I prefer to be me like pretending to be another. I don't care if I am misunderstood, the problem is not mine, but those who never ask, those who are superficial, those who are the way I don't like (and no one needs me, by the way).

I'm happy, to certain degree.

 

[zeroturbulence]

Before we had mass access to the Internet with message boards/social media/email, it was less common to encounter unfiltered crazy/strange/rude thought patterns and behavior. I mean yes we all encountered it, but it wasn't encountered on such a large scale.

People in non-Internet life tend to have a better "filter" before they speak and act.
Also, our circle of influence is more contained in non-Internet life.
Hence encountering unfiltered crazy/strange/rude thought patterns and behavior is not as common.
This standard may not apply if you're in law enforcement, mental health, etc.

With the growth of the Internet, our access to crazy/strange/rude behavior has been increased greatly.
One can use social media or a message board and literally spend hours and hours drenching their mind in all sorts of strange/crazy/rude behavior and thought patterns.

We hear the horror stories of the "Twittersphere".
Stories of millions upon millions of people saying things they would NEVER say in "real life".


How has this shift in access to such things influenced you?
Has it had a good influence or bad influence?
Has it caused you to interpret reality and human behavior differently?

Have you become more jaded?
If yes, is that justified, or has online contact given you a distorted view of human behavior?

Will you take steps to change if it has had a bad influence on you?
What steps will you take?

Should it be taken into consideration that online formats for socializing may be magnets for certain behaviors and thought patterns you wouldn't encounter in "real life"?

How do you deal with all of these things?

Stay off the internet.

 

[Liamson]

To me the most fascinating transformation that occurs on the internet, as a byproduct of different ideologies and philosophies, is the melting pot of worldviews.

And along the borders of these worldviews, even within communities, communication and reconciliation is occurring.

It reminds me of what happens when various elementary kids reach 6th or 7th grade and they all arrive at the same middle school. Their social hierarchy is essentially reconfigured for the new and different peer groups.

In addition to this, some people experience a disillusionment with their own worldview because it no longer accurately describes the framework of the world they now inhabit. At their school, they might have been the fastest or the smartest but, at middle school, they might not even be in the top ten of either speed or intelligence.

So people adapt, they form new worldviews, new peer groups and a new hierarchy.

In order to thrive in this environment, people develop tolerances, coping mechanisms and ways to differentiate truth from fiction.


A example rigidity in the face of new information on the Internet is VenomFangX getting steam rolled, or the Westboro Baptist Church spewing garbage. Old ideas, that for too long have lived unchallenged in the dark, see light and are quickly destroyed in broad daylight.


On the Internet the court of public opinion is always in session. Arguments are not for people engaged but for the vast sum of audiences unseen. In this war each faction has its champion of ideas. Learning to navigate the battlefield and pick the right fights, is the difference between survival and shame.


In a world where Peter Joseph Documentaries, Chem Trails and UFO sightings are packaged well enough to be consumed by the inattentive, its important for each of us to do our own research, find out the truth of a matter for ourselves and even challenge our own faith for ourselves.

 

[Praus]

Stay off the internet.

View attachment 68171

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[wisebeardman]

thing that really annoys me is people consider internet "social media" when in truth it is "anti-social media" and quite frank, the internet, and cell phones are just flat out making people stupid.

I would love to see a massive solar flair just take out the power grid, no internet, no cell phone, no tv. instantly tossed back to 1890. oh how wonderful it would be.

 

[Liamson]

thing that really annoys me is people consider internet "social media" when in truth it is "anti-social media" and quite frank, the internet, and cell phones are just flat out making people stupid.

I would love to see a massive solar flair just take out the power grid, no internet, no cell phone, no tv. instantly tossed back to 1890. oh how wonderful it would be.

I think people were always stupid, its just the internet has placed it on public display.

 

[wisebeardman]

I think people were always stupid, its just the internet has placed it on public display.

No i see more stupid now then I used to. 20 years ago someone 18 years old would be smart enough to find Indiana on a map.. today a good lot of them couldnt even find the United States on a map.

20 years ago, people could actually use voice, and actually talk about something. today a good majority have no clue how to talk to someone they HAVE to use that cell phone garbage and text crap.

20 years ago, people actually knew who George Washington was. today many have no idea who that is, but think entering your atm pin backwards will call the police cause it was posted on the internet so it must be true.

in 20 years, society in general has become pretty dumb very fast

 

[rachelsedge]

I think people were always stupid, its just the internet has placed it on public display.

True. This is why I'm not sure if people were less rude back in the day, or if they were just as rude but simply didn't have the venues of public venting that we do today (internet and cellphones).

I am under the impression that manners are being taught less and less, though perhaps they aren't being taught but not sticking because manners seem to fly out the window on the internet.