On Not Letting The Internet Make Us Combative
I won’t try to explain how people are radicalized or become violent through the internet. I think smart people and those who study and understand the dark pockets of the web and human psychology are the authorities on that, and thankfully they’ll continue to write about it.
But it’s harrowing to realize how much of an impact the internet, and even television that mimics the reactionary perspective, has on the ordinary person. People I know that aren’t even necessarily politically inclined seem to have had their opinions get stronger and be more affected by what’s happening online.
I want to start to regulate how much I engage with the internet, because I’ve seen myself get more combative and less nuanced if I spend too much time online rather than reading and talking to other people.
I’ve even noticed this in my writing. It’s probably natural to a certain extent for writing to mimic the emotions a person is feeling at the time, but when I’ve been engaged in the political climate of the internet for too long, I definitely become more aggressive and combative.
The truth is, it’s hard to gauge how bad the world actually is, versus how bad Twitter tells us the world is. (This is excluding the major events that do take place in our world, though in many places violence is down, even though it feels to be up because of how often it is reported.)
I do know that when I visit crowded retail stores, sometimes stressful places filled with strangers, some who are agitated and likely have political differences, we all seem to get along. The world goes on as normal. And the world goes on as normal when I step outside for a walk or a run and stop engaging in the online dramatization of reality.
We should all stay informed. We should know what’s happening globally, locally, and politically. But as some commentators have pointed out, the news actually keeps us misinformed, something that’s much worse than just being uninformed. That’s one reason to quit paying attention, like Ryan Holiday says.
The world also doesn’t evolve as quickly as we like to think it does. The 24/7 hour news cycle and at-your-door consumption makes us think that change is instant. It isn’t. The American founders created our system specifically so that change requires steady and modest progress and radical changes can’t happen. Even when a bill is proposed or passed in congress, there are the months (even years) it takes for that effort to get done, as well as the legwork before the bill was introduced to get people to start thinking and agreeing with the policy. The same way a child develops slowly, or a professional in a career, is the reality of how policy and the world evolves.
Of course, I have opinions that many people don’t agree with, including close friends, family, and coworkers. But there’s a sort of civility in conversation toward understanding each other and acknowledging that we have reasons for our thinking. In the best of the conversations, the goal is to get closer to truth rather than one person’s side winning. The best case scenario also hopes that people have formed opinions through serious reading, contemplation, and consideration of every possibility, rather than the radicalization done by engaging with too much of the internet.
For all the positives that come from the connected world, it seems we do still have some way to go. We haven’t fully realized how to manage reality with the online world. I hope ourselves as consumers, along with the gatekeepers of these forms of media, can start having mature conversations about what should be done to adjust our societies according to technology.
