People love to argue on social media.
Often it’s trolls, doing their thing. Other times it’s the rest of us, wasting our time pushing our point or defending our beliefs.
Either way, arguments on social media almost always blow up into something bigger than they ever would in the real world, face to face.
The assumption is that people are more likely to say things from behind a screen. The anonymity or physical distance gives them a sense of protection from any potential reaction.
This might be the case in some situations, but not all. Many big arguments I’ve seen involve people who know each other in the real world, they’re often friends who will likely face each other soon. This fact might dampen some of the harshness of the words used, but rarely the intensity of the argument itself.
Then there’s the issue of words on a screen. Without tone of voice or facial expression, it’s impossible to convey exactly what is meant by what’s being said. We’re forced to assume what the other means and we almost always misjudge.
These things play a huge role in social arguments, we all know this. But there’s something more, a bigger factor that is cause for the first two and more: Time.
Time is the most significant difference between real-world debate and social media arguments. Online we take our time to craft the “perfect” response, a luxury that face-to-face situations don’t allow. During this time, we’re affected by other things around us: traffic, our jobs, the news…
It also allows our minds to wander a little, to overthink what the other person really means. Time is the reason the lack of expression or tone plays a part in the first place. We compound this effect by overthinking our own words. The longer we wait to respond, the more time the other has to stew over comments already made.
And humans are awful at assuming the best intentions of others. When the ego is threatened, we go on the defensive.
If you participate on social media, there’s a good chance you’ll end up in a discussion on one subject or another. The algorithms are designed to get us worked up. And wasting precious time on a pointless argument is exactly what it wants from us.
Discussing important issues is, well, important. Just be mindful of how the time we spend on these debates is the very reason they so often turn ugly.
