Why is the internet so toxic?

Most online communities are trash. This is one of the few decent ones I've found. It could be that people just act more toxic online than "IRL" because of anonymity, especially over controversial issues like politics, but part of me wonders if it's a social epidemic, and that many people are just miserable in real life and express it online.

I do think it is the anonymity of the internet and the fact that it is not face to face that allows people to be horrible. Some people are angry and unhappy and use the internet to lash out at others because they can't do it in real life.

I'm honestly curious if social media is a window into society, and it makes me wonder how miserable on a daily basis the average person is.

MoFo is decent because the owner/moderator Yoda sets a positive tone for us and also has made rules like no politics/religion or social hot topics can be discussed. Those rules and Yoda's leadership keeps the tone of this place light and fun.

BUT if Yoda was to say, you're all on your own, I won't be here and there's no moderation, talk about whatever you want...this place would become like The Lord of Flies. People would become more entrenched, more polarized, division lines would be drawn and people would battle for supremacy over there so called enemies just to feel the rush of power that is eluding them in their real life....And all the good people who just wanted to have peaceful fun would end up leaving. Luckily Yoda is around and keeps this place on the right track.

I don't think the average person is miserable on a daily basis. We all have a duality, a dark side if you will, our own 'evil Captain Kirk' that we keep in check in normal life but like a transporter accident gone awry, social media allows us to be and say things that are contrary to our better real selves.

Law of averages.

On t'web you're in contact with every single bully in the world.

In real life, you might meet 2 or 3 in your whole life.

Like, at school.
Every year/grade in every school has 1, maybe sometimes 2-3, bullies per year/grade.

Let's sum that up... in real life, across a nursery school, primary school, and secondary school, that means there's somewhere around 20-30 bullies at any one time, across 3 schools.
In the old days before t'internet, you'd go home at the end of the day... no more dealing with them.
With each town and city in the world having dozens and dozens of nursery schools, primary schools, dozens and dozens of secondary schools, means there's quite a high amount of a**holes just in each town and city.

Work is the same.
Any job you go to will have at least 1 a**hole. Probably more.
But, you go home at the end of the day.

So out of your whole life, in real life, you'll meet 2-3, maybe 4, or even 5 at most.
Your entire life.

These days... the web opens it up that every bully, every a**hole on the planet, everyone who simply wants to pick and push because that's their nature, is always there, always talking, always watching, always trolling, always posting, 25 hours a day, 8 days of the week.

It's the modern day nature of simply being connected.

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The internet is in general a great thing, but it also makes us spend time with people and ideas we would not entertain in real life, due to anonymity. There are a lot more casual connections, and a lot of people end up rationalizing them as completely inconsequential, which applies both to their attachment to other users they talk with online and how serious they perceive their own words and acts to be. When thematic forums and communities were the norm, this was less noticeable because those in the same space shared a common niche interest, felt like they knew each other better and also these communities could be moderated more efficiently; but nowadays, with the proliferation of massive content aggregators as the one and only way of interacting with the Internet for most people, there are fewer chances to get attached to a community and by extension its members, and in consequence people can be mean and nasty and not regret attitudes that they would not consider acceptable in normal interactions.

This is why I always say blocking is self-care.

All good explanations that address at least part of the problem.

I think another part is contained in the title - the Internet is indeed toxic... literally.

We used to think that was just a euphemism for making too much time on the Net a bad habit, but science has now proved that the Internet (or at least regular to extended usage) actually changes your brain chemistry! It's addictive as hell, and anything that addictive is, in a sense, toxic (even if it's not an external chemical substance). We know it changes young people and de-socializes them - and if it's effecting their brains at integral developmental stages, that's even worse.

My suggestion: set a time limit for Internet usage and stick to it (use a kitchen timer that rings off if you have to).
Promise yourself that the next time a live human tries to talk to you and you're using your computer, tablet or Smartphone, that you will give the live person priority and turn off (or turn away from) your device while you engage with them.
For parents, extreme monitoring is needed. Time limits, discipline, requisite outdoor & live friends time, get the devices out of the classrooms, non-tech extra-curricular activities or, if possible, consider eliminating (or extremely limiting) tech from their lives until they are an adult.

Well, this is my overall view on the internet:

The internet is often toxic, but it doesn't have to be. Theoretically, people could create better communities via the internet than exist "IRL". I've spent a lot of time analyzing online communities, and while many of them are terrible, I've been curious about what the components of a "good community" are and whether or not it would be possible to create one. Plenty of terrible communities, such as abusive households exist "IRL", so if a person could lay the framework for a good community without borders, it could serve a social good.

The problem is that, unless it is a fairly small, close knit community, keeping the toxicity at bay would be too much work unless you were making money off of it. Most good communities are based off of a positive common interest (e.x. karaoke, philosophy), and that without such an interest to bring people together, the communities tend to become toxic.

I have other thoughts as well, but I'll hold off on sharing them for now.

This is because political discourse is discouraged here.

Right, I've yet to find a political website which has much in the way of intelligent discourse. The closest I've found is on Delphi Forums, but even then it's sensationalist and misinformative.

The media (including social media) has been complicit in sewing division and enabling misinformation to have a platform. This, in time has emboldened people to speak up with hateful speech, unchallenged in the name of free speech.

Not really much more to say as the forum rules don't permit it.

Regarding what I was saying above, currently I don't maintain friendships "IRL". I have trust issues, and there are other issues preventing me from seeking them out. I just seek out positive communities and avoid the toxic ones (and try to avoid being toxic myself). I also like to talk about subject matter such as philosophy which it's hard to find people who want to talk about it. (I'm not enrolled in a philosophy course at a university, I'm just interested in it).

Probably why I don't watch news, listen to news, have news on the radio... and over the years have actively blocked all news-media outlets from my FB, Twitter, YT etc pages.

I mean, genuinely, I actually don't know who the UK Prime Minister is right now, nor the US President, I couldn't tell you the state of the economy, nor the state of the "current thing" when it comes to social norms or trends.

I stick to what I know, and avoid things I have either no interest in, or know is complete BS (which is basically every news media outlet) so it either gets blocked, or already has been blocked for a long time already, so it can't affect me.

The only time I really get political is when I take to Twitter occasionally to abuse my local water provider when they crank prices up to extortionate amounts because they've already blocked me on FB for telling the truth on social media

Oh, on thinking of what I just said... that could make me look like a toxic online bully... but everything I've said to the water board, I would without hesitation, say it directly to their face if they ever had the brass b*lls to come to my doorstep.

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But, internet in general... ♪ ♫ it's addicted to you, don't you know that it's toxic? ♫ ♪

You don't know who the President of the United states is?

I'm in the UK and don't know who the current PM is either.

I have absolutely no interest in the real world, SL.
I couldn't tell you the name of the current leader of any country tbh.

I stay away from everything that I have 0 interest in.

Been like this for about 10 years now, and... I'm a lot happier since I made the cuts.

My sister is like that. If it doesn't enter 'her bubble' she knows nothing about it and only bothers with things in her bubble. Sadly for her, parenthood and Covid have messed a lot with that and I can attest that she was a lot happier before.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Yeah I followed Covid in 2020 and early 2021, as it near killed 2 of my brothers, and killed a couple uncles... but, personally, I couldn't get over the bullsh*t the media was spreading about it so I cut it out after 2021 because the media was still persisting on spreading lies and disinformation.

From 2015 or so, apart from Covid, I've followed literally zero media.

I had my jabs like a good boy... but, get this, I had CoVid twice before I had my first jab, and I've had Cov 13 times since my 2nd jab, so I guess that was all BS as well...

I gave up caring about the news, sensationalism, and false media, and essentially the world and its norms... a looooong time ago.

Edit:
CoVid is a Coronavirus... it mutates and changes as it does the rounds.
Influenza... is also a CoronaVirus... and it too, does the same...
So all the stuff about mutations, being more dangerous etc... CoVid is now the new Flu.

Newspapers tried to use that as a panic inducing headline without actually saying Flu is the same...

But, you know... Newspapers would have us believe it's a Nuclear Winter if there's dew on the grass... so... snip snip...

You don't come into contact with a single film, tv show, book, or media source that mentions anything like current affairs, yet your'e daily, on possibly the most popular movie frum on the internet?