Why do negative topics dominate social media sites, even here?
This is a question I eventually ask about every social media site I use(d). I like Tildes, and the discussions here are much more constructive than any other place I've seen, however I've seen it to be true even here. When one doesn't curate their feed, and use the default home page, the negative topics seems to dominate. I'm talking about the topics that talk about problems and what's wrong with something, often with titles implying the awfulness or emergency of such a problem. I think I don't need to elaborate on how this is much more prevalent and extreme on other sites. But nevertheless, it's a recurring pattern even here.
I know the argument that goes that humans are problem-fixing machines, and that there are psychological incentives to focus on problems. However, this seems overly reductive and lacking in explanatory power to me. Outside of internet, this is not a phenomenon I've experienced with people, unless they were mentally going through something very rough. Otherwise, people generally seem to talk about neutral or positive issues. And even while talking about negative issues, the tone often isn't grim, and doesn't leave a depressive aftertaste.
Even on the internet, in smaller spaces and more closed spaces, like chatting servers, this doesn't seem to hold true. Sure, there are politically-oriented, and therefore problem-oriented spaces even there, but most spaces don't seem to be that way. Back when I used Facebook too, while the posts were vain, most of my friends and acquaintances were just interested in sharing and commenting on social lives.
So I think this is a problem that is more endemic to "open" social media sites, with easily accessible and open-to-public spaces, rather than applying to the whole humanity or even every internet space. Its one of my biggest head scratchers about social media sites. So far I couldn't find a satisfactory explanation in the literature either. Doesn't mean there isn't, but I haven't stumbled upon such.
So, I'm interested in your opinions: Why do negative topics dominate on open social media sites, even here, unless curated against? Why is this such a strong recurring pattern for sites structured like this, while it's not in other online and physical spaces and interections I mentioned?
I think it boils down to cynicism being easy.
It's not hard to poke holes or call out problems, because everyone agrees and understands that the world is full of problems. It's much harder to offer a solution that doesn't have its own problems and consequences.
So its easier to hold a default position of pessimism and just need to be able to maintain the position that bad things are happening than it is to hold a position of optimism and have to justify that.
I think the ubiquitous critique of Capitalism is an example of this. Most things in society are in some way linked to the economy, and thus are linked in some way to Capitalism. So you can kind of go into any conversation where a problem exists and point out that it is a product of Capitalism, and bam, suddenly you've made a relevant and insightful contribution to the conversation that makes you seem clever.
It doesn't matter if I don't know anything about how farming works, I can still say that there are problems with farming that are the fault of billionaires and people on social media will probably agree with me without further explanation. Its a safe reliable way to always have something to say without really needing to be particularly knowledgeable any given topic.
This is a big part of it, a study came out just a few days ago showing that “people report they are cynical in order to avoid giving the impression they do not know much about politics. “
And this is a great piece I came across the other day on the “ugh capitalism” culture of social media and how it’s mostly used to seem like you are making a sophisticated point while not having to actually know much about the thing you are complaining about.
Most of social media is talking about the news of the day, the main character of Twitter, etc. And negativity is the best way to sound smart without having to dig to deep into anything (and why would you? There’ll be a new main topic tomorrow)
Thank you very much for linking that article about "Ugh, Capitalism"! It perfectly describes a big gripe I have with many social commentators.
Especially this part:
Soooooo many times I'm reading something about some "big problem with/under capitalism" and just think "that's not a problem inherent to capitalism, the social policies in your country just suck."
I think this is missing the point, and to explain why I'm going to go off on a tangent:
Recently, there was a YouTube video called "capitalism is good, actually" which said that the problem with climate change wasn't capitalism, it was the lack of carbon tax. Except, we've the recognized the carbon tax as the obvious solution since the 1980s; we just haven't been able to implement it is due to corporate lobbying from fossil fuel companies.
Capitalism is not a list of laws. Capitalism is a process that prevents laws from being changed if they sufficiently benefit the rich and powerful. Saying "other country X doesn't have that law" is missing the point, the existence of any given law is a historical accident (e.g. the US "chicken tax" that prevents small foreign truck imports, guess where the name comes from) and won't be consistent across countries.
So: the key term here is the political economy (I.e. the market for buying/selling political influence). The political economy is inherent to capitalism, and there has never been a capitalist society without one. A political economy inevitably causes distortions in the free market, because buying a distortion in your company's favor ("regulatory capture") is frequently profitable. This means that any failings of checks/balances of capitalism can be caused by capitalism itself, and can't necessarily be used as justification for "that's not capitalism, your [checks on capitalism] just suck".
I always wonder why social policies in a country sucks. We know solutions to many problems, so why they haven't been introduced? Is someone lobbying (or bribing, to be fair) politicians? Who can that person/entity be? A corporation?
Noo, it can't be capitalistic corporations. /s
That's exactly this „big problem with/under capitalism“. Social policies suck because capitalism don't want to let govt improve them, that's my point of view.
+1 cynicism being easy. Furthermore, I would posit that "negativity is a confirmation bias".
I finished watching a splendid film yesterday, where the creators used excellent parallelism, wove a complex tapestery of a narrative by constantly set up and resolved threads, made call backs visually as well as narratively, had witty dialogue, complex and growing characters... It's an excellent story that didn't need any sci fi or world is ending or explosion or chasing or other artificial means to keep the whole thing tense throughout.
Made the mistake of reading some comments on some edge lord forum board. Criticism: the positive ending is naive and unbelievable. They'd find the movie "real" and "good" and "believable" if say, rock falls and everyone dies. Or main character wakes up and the good ending was all a dream.
It's crazy pervasive. It's why in high school we were all made to read 1984 and brave new world and lord of the flies: those stories are "mature and real", whereas actual news stories of boys lost on an island helping each other and being life long friends is not real, and stories of actual social workers helping the down trodden is naive.....it's sad.
What movie was it? Your description has gotten me interested.
A Guilty Conscience. Trailer
The original is in Cantonese with English subs. The Mandarin dub is basically unwatchable: Cantonese is a very unique language - you can understand the original intention based on tones and subtitles, but when dubbed over even the best translations will miss contextual key clues (imho).
In middle school English, we teach that you can't have a story without conflict.
I do a 5 minute warm up every year where I challenge kids to come up with a quick story with no conflict. Usually, the kids include conflict and don't even realize it (like including an internal conflict or a conflict with nature). The ones who do succeed in creating a quick story without conflict immediately agree that their story totally sucks. A story without conflict is pretty much a list of boring facts.
“Conflict” is used pretty loosely. Stories about people successfully solving problems can be interesting. That’s a happy ending.
The problem needs to be one that matters, though, with interesting stakes and challenges. Finding a romantic partner: difficult, right? Someone might just be lucky, but that’s not very interesting solution as far as problem-solving goes. It’s not going to help you think about your own problems.
The problem can’t be solved in a routine way, either. “It broke, so I ordered a new one online” isn’t an interesting problem or solution.
Cell phones have made some problems like getting lost very easy to solve, so they’re no longer interesting. There needs to be some reason that the obvious solution won’t work, and it can feel a bit contrived.
One of my currently favourite styles of stories (or storytelling) is sometimes described as "competency porn", essentially stories about skilled (yet still human and thus flawed) people facing some serious issues or challenges and then using their skills and knowledge to work through them, often with other, differently skilled people.
The works of Andy Weir (The Martian and Project Hail Mary) and Denise E. Taylor (The Bobiverse and Quantum Earth series) are good examples of this style of story.
The first children's book my daughter and I wrote together when she was seven had no conflict. She hated all forms of it in stories, books, and media at that age. As soon as two or more characters were in opposition, even to their environment, she would shut it off.
So we wrote the book Yesif. It is set six hundred years in the future, when a girl wakes up and tells her family who live in a sea cave deep under the Pacific Ocean that she is going to go visit her friend. So she rises up, riding the back of a sperm whale, making friends on land and in the clouds, before she is launched into space on a lightning bolt and sent to an orbital around Saturn.
The characters she meets along the way are so interesting in their own right and the journey is so grand that there is never the need for conflict to hold the reader's attention or move the story along. Writing stories without conflict can easily be more than just 'a list of facts.' It's just how we've been conditioned to think about stories, especially in modern times.
I find that there's a hidden, strong western bias to the whole "rising action - climax - denouement" paradigm to story telling that's taught by default, as if all other stories are "bad" or "boring".
Two people having a pleasant conversation in which they agree and compliment each other is not a story unless there's hidden or overt tension. Six people living in a house sharing their dreams and successes over meals is boring, let's make them fight over lovers or force them to eat worms. The story of a two (say, a youth and an elder, or a bear and a squirrel, or the sun and the wind) meeting a series of events and sharing their different interpretations, that's just moralizing and not really a story either. A poetic description of something beautiful that just is: can it also be not boring?
Why is conflict necessary for something to be interesting?
In a literary (storytelling) context, conflict doesn't mean fighting, arguing, and that sort of thing. It can, but what it actually means is obstacles. Issues. Problems.
None of those things have to be Huge or Dramatic or Violent, but an interesting story character can't be interesting if they go from A to B to C in a straight line without any bobbles whatsoever. The bobbles make it fun and interesting, it's not the getting to B or C that makes it fun for readers or viewers. The audience enjoys it more if it feels earned, and straight lines without issues or hindrances feel like a gift. A gimmie.
If a lovely single woman who works as a florist lives alone, and dreams of traveling the world but never does because she always convinces herself of some reason why she can't ... that's conflict. It's internal to her.
Her story doesn't have to have a single character anywhere who argues with her, or puts her down, impedes her, or anything else. No mustachio twirling villains need to be present, no evil aggressors, for there to be conflict when she (again) sighs and doesn't actually buy the tickets for a trip or get in the car to drive off on one.
All the conflict would be her against herself. Her giving herself excuses why she can't go, shouldn't go, won't go. Reasons, however believable or not. She tells herself the shop needs to stay open, that she has flowers about to bloom that'll need tending or they'll wither and die. Maybe she has a few touchstone customers she chats with and feels like she'd miss them, or they her, if she were to jet off to wherever for a week or two.
The story here could be about how she'll want to travel, has always wanted to travel, but never does. Why not? Why doesn't she just go? What stops her? Oh, just herself? Why doesn't she get out of her own way and go after this thing she says she loves and wants, instead of just dreaming about it and never actually doing anything to engage in it?
She's her own obstacle. Her parents, neighbors, customers, everyone can always want her to go travel and enjoy a little piece of her dream, even offer and attempt to help her, but she just shows up in the shop, day after day, never going. All those people can be lovely and polite and helpful and anything but villains, and the story still has conflict because Flora the Florist says one thing (I long to travel) but always does another (but I won't go anywhere).
Flora is in her own way, and while she doesn't have to change necessarily, she would have to spend the story examining herself and taking the reader along her journey of dreaming but never doing. At the end of the story she can get on a plane and start traveling, and that's one ending. Or she could stay at the shop, and decide she's okay with that, and that'd be another. But along the way, we'd be there with Flora as she thinks and reacts and decides.
If you go on vacation, and it's just perfect and lovely in every respect, when you come back your friends and family will listen to your story of "oh it was great, and we had tons of fun, and it was all so lovely" politely enough, but it's dull.
If your friend comes back from a horror show, you're interested. Heck, if your friend comes back with a tale of "well, it was nice but one night the fire alarm went off, and we weren't dressed, then they wouldn't let us back in to get dressed, and a local news photographer was there taking pictures and we didn't want to be in the paper in our PJs..." well, you're obviously not thrilled your friend had a not-great night.
But you are more interested in hearing about that night than you are about the other six where it was all "we woke up, we laid out on the beach, went dancing at the club after dinner, had fabulous sex and fell asleep in each other's arms, and that was it." You're happy they had fun, but there's just nothing there that feels interesting. That fire alarm night though, that feels interesting and you'd probably talk to them an hour about just that, and maybe five minutes about the rest.
The bobbles, the obstacles, and how someone overcomes them, are interesting. And in many instances are often the only really interesting thing. Everyone's got problems, and it's fun to hear how someone else (even a fictional someone else) deals with their problems. None of those problems have to be Uber Dramatic or Earth Shattering, but there do have to be issues and obstacles (however small and slight) that must be addressed. The addressing is the part that'll help hook the audience, and allow the character(s) to showcase themselves.
Mary Poppins, for example. She's practically perfect in every way. But she's a great problem solver, and watching her fix things is fun. If the whole movie was Poppins being perfect, and running her clients' lives just as perfectly without issue, no one would care about Poppins. With some issues for Poppins to resolve, she becomes interesting. We care about her qualities, because we look forward to seeing new aspects of her, and how she'll use the ones we already know about for the latest bobble she's trying to steady.
I think this is considered a de facto standard which sometimes leads to unengaging stories. Sometimes I feel stories are bland and unengaging precisely because it feels like a paint by numbers narrative construction.
Like, have you ever seen a show where there is some obvious romantic tension early on, but then there is some very contrived misunderstanding that prevents them from acknowledging their feelings until close to the end of the story? Do you ever get frustrated because the conflict and tension feels arbitrary, so there's not really much tension because you already know exactly how it's going to resolve in the end?
I think there's a difference between having drama because you have written a story about a scenario where people have an inherent conflict of values or opinion vs having drama because a story needs drama.
Personally I have really been enjoying slice of life stuff where there isn't much conflict, contrived or otherwise.
Yes, a story can be unsatisfying because you see the obvious solution and the characters don't see it, for what feel like contrived reasons.
On the other hand, people miss obvious possibilities sometimes, in real life, for complicated reasons. Also, some stories can justify why the characters don't see it pretty well? Let's say the reader knows something that the characters obviously couldn't know?
The conflict angle is very interesting, and thank you for bringing it up. However, I'm not inclined to agree that conflict necessarily brings domination of negative topics. Conflict has a very broad and loose definition. For example, talking about the positives and negatives of an art piece, criticizing it, also brings conflict, but it's much different than the ones I'm talking about in the topic at hand. Still, I will think about the conflict angle more :)
If it bleeds it leads is a maxim for the news business. When I look for things to post here, I include sites like r/upliftingnews but generally speaking news tends to be negative.
You can only submit what is published.
What are these other sites that focus on the positive?
But why would it be a given that such sites have to be dominated by [political] news? There are plenty of fandom, art, music, hobby, literature topics, not to mention day-to-day life topics. These are the things that dominate a lot of my conversations in real life.
Also, I mentioned it in the thread. Facebook, at least the feeds of my friends and I many years ago, weren't dominated by negative topics. Chatting platforms, such as Discord, also have plenty of various sized spaces that aren't dominated by such topics. To add, not social media sites themselves, but the smaller fandom communities in them also often are very positive.
I think there is a general difference in what we talk to strangers about and people we know. Real life conversations are usually with the intent of setting a good friendly atmosphere and we talk about things we can closely relate to.
I am interested in hearing about my coworkers vacations, fun stories about their kids, and so on. With total strangers on the internet, such topics lack a common reference point you can relate to. And while I don't mind such topics online, we even have some casual threads dedocated to such things here on Tildes, it will hardly be something that can spark long online discussions.
In online forums like this everyone writes several long paragraphs of text they have usually thought a bit about. That is very different from casual real life conversations with short sentences back and forth. A chat room is better at replicating the positive friendly vibe of real life conversations, whereas long form online discussions is often about intellectual topics.
Still there is plenty of opportunity for non pessimistic discussions. In ~games and ~movies and ~music have weekly threads were people can just pitch in on what they like. Though even that can be a challenge. I know from myself if I dislike a movie, it is easy to write several paragraphs and what is wrong with it. If I love a movie it is difficult to get more in depth than "this was good".
This rings true for me and I find it interesting. Why is it exactly that pinning down and elaborating on what I like about a given piece of media I enjoy takes so much more effort than enumerating issues with one I disliked?
The only explanation that comes to mind quickly is that on average, most of us aren’t engaging with media critically unless we’re immediately displeased or bored with it somehow.
This makes a lot of intuitive sense to me. I think it's very likely that it has an effect. Thanks for the insightful take!
Maybe you are inspiring more such posts.
You can also make them.
I agree with @daywalker that this is not the answer (or not the whole answer).
Fwiw, I do make an effort to post more positive topics here on Tildes, but there is very little engagement on them. I usually see a few, "this was nice, thanks" or other mild and positive responses (which are appreciated), but not much discussion.
Not that we should be driven by a desire for engagement, which is why I keep doing it, but I think it bears more scrutiny about why the engagement here does seem to focus on the more negative cynical posts.
I'm sorry but while I see the merit of being the change on some level, this approach is overly reductive. The answer to what I'm talking about is not ignoring any critical topic or conversation. That's why I framed the topic in terms of domination, rather than the mere existence of such topics. This kind of solution also puts the entire responsibility on the shoulders of the critic, which is a very convenient way to dismiss such issues. It also reduces it to a simple issue of personal responsibility, which is never a solution to communal problems.
I also think the framing of critical issues is also very important in terms of its emotional impact on people. Criticism is a tough issue, and I definitely agree that there can be overly destructive critical inclinations in some communities. But simply questioning things, asking people for feedback, trying to understand—these are not an overly grim framing. I'm trying my best to approach this issue with curiosity and conversation facilitation, which I find to be more healthy for me and other people I've interacted with.
Fair. But on the other hand, people like discussing different things. I doubt anyone is posting something that they don't either find personally interesting or think a significant part of the community will find interesting.
I agree there's a psychological factor that's not well researched or understood which trends human engagement toward the negative, rather than the positive. After, the news leads with the bleed, as Boxer pointed out. No one's news looks like this:
So no, the news, life itself, doesn't appear to work that way.
But my comment is on your mention of fandom. That's not a source of positivity either. Star Wars and Marvel, for example, bring haters and doubters and downplayers and outright assholes tumbling out of the woodwork to comment on it. And by comment I mean hate on. A new project, a new casting, a new script, a new series, a rerelease ... whatever it is, you can almost set your watch by how the thread will start to fill with "yeah, but it sucks" and "sigh who asked for this" and so on.
So even in fandom, people aren't willing to leave it alone if it's not their cup of happy. They just have to crowd in and shit on it, and usually take the next obvious but obnoxious step of shitting on anyone who dares disagree with their shit and shitting. You never see Star Wars threads that look like this, for example:
No, no one ever posts that. Why would they, when they can be negative instead. And not just negative, dismissive and insulting towards those who aren't also those things.
Is it attention seeking? Sometimes. Is it spreading their misery? Probably sometimes. Do they despise that someone else doesn't agree with their dislike? I think more often than not that's mixed in there somewhere.
I said there's not a lot of research into negativity, but that's maybe not entirely accurate. Media, for example, has been running metrics and ratings for many decades now. And since the Information Age hit, all that data has gotten both more plentiful and far more granular. Any digital feed of any kind, for example, can give data down to the second or the individual click. Websites can track where your cursor is sometimes, how long before you clicked away, and more.
They use all this to figure out that the negative stuff is more engaging. So they managed to validate their old maxims about shocking and enraging content being the most likely to grab and keep attention. Now it wasn't just "conventional wisdom" from the "old hands", but bespectacled data specialists spreading out reports and charts and graphs to prove it.
So ultimately, there's a human nature thing at play here. People ignore things when they're not pissed off. No one stops and says "oh my God, I forgot to praise them, tell them good job, wow what a wonderful thing they're doing." But few people forget to chime in with "please fucking stop now, I hope you die, you're wrong and evil and should suffer." Plenty of people will rearrange their attention span to shovel out negativity in all sorts of forms, where they at best just kind of chuckle silently for a moment if things are positive.
One thing I'm reasonably sure of. Human nature is ... unlikely to change. People get pissed off if they have to move, or find new shoes, or when their favorite restaurant closes and they have to take a chance on a new joint. Telling the entire planet "hey, quit being negative or we'll ... keep reminding you until you remember" doesn't seem likely to work out well.
Probably there'd just be whole new movements of "fuck the knock it off assholes; let us rage."
Have you blocked the groups and tags that you don't want to see?
Anyone can block tags every time they see an unwanted article.
Oh, I do curate my feed. But I don't login on my phone, and when I browse Tildes there I'm reminded how different the regular main page is from my own, which prompted me to create this discussion.
Not wanting to be overly reductive, but the phone apps like three cheers for tildes would allow you to keep your set preferences on your phone if you chose to use them.
You raise an interesting question. I've worked in the news business so I don't tend to question why things are negative.
Incidentally, Terry Pratchett novel the Truth is a great commentary on news.
Let's take it this way - you buy some appliance, it starts developing problems through some time eventually not working that well. What is the chance you will say to someone else (friend, family) that they shouldn't buy it based on your experience - I mean tell without them actually asking how it is? If it worked flawlessly would you behave differently?
What I'm trying to say is that if there is negative experience, people tend to speak about it more. If something works fine why even speak about it? It just does its job, doesn't it?
Next thing is that people tend to like (generally) to read about someone else's bad luck... Which is sad, but true. At least where I live.
EDIT: Spelling
I guess it's the same reason why (at least for graphic design) we have the saying, "if no one notices your work, you've done your job well."
The same is said about soundtracks - if it didn't stick out, it was perfect.
This might be turning a bit off topic, but while I don't disagree - there is also something really special when a soundtrack sticks out. The soundtrack to Star Wars and Indiana Jones are iconic and instantly recognizable - and hummable! Which is a type of theme song soundtrack we rarely see anymore. I mean, how many big movie soundtracks from the last 20 years can you hum the tune to?
Yes, this is true. I thought more about game soundtracks. But there definitely are movie soundtracks that are easily recognizable. You're on point.
From the last 20 years, you say? Mhm... ... I'd love to say Inception, although I can't remember any tune from the movie. The music was iconic though. The same goes for Dune part I & II. Which kinda confirms my original point though :-D
Thinking about it movies nowadays seem (to me) to not be around one central music tune anymore. They are not like Jaws or Bac to the future anymore. They still (can) contain brilliant pieces of music yet not be that recognizable or rememberable (if that is a word).
Tildes is a link-sharing site and we share what we happen to see elsewhere, so it’s going to reflect that. It’s also going to reflect which stories people are interested in following. Certainly there are major stories I’ve been interested in that are mostly negative: the pandemic, the Ukraine war, and what’s happening in Gaza. I also find stories about fraud interesting.
I don’t really filter for positive or negative, though. I share things that make me go, “wow, that’s news to me.”
But another factor is that people are suspicious of boosterism. You can’t post largely positive stores about some subjects without a lot of pushback. (This includes many companies and trends that make people nervous like AI.)
Maybe looking for interesting good news to share would be a good thing? There are websites devoted to good news. Often the stories aren’t that interesting, but someone could read them and post the articles they think are good ones.
Thanks for the feedback! You are right that Tildes doesn't exist in a bubble, and while original content is also part of the site, majority of content is posted from external sources, therefore affected by rest of the internet and media.
We reflect only what is posted here, not the internet as a whole. But I have to admit we're a fairly balanced bunch.
We usually leave large comments in comparison to other sites.
These comments (preferably) add additional nuance. I think that sort of 'original content' outweighs the reposted link here.
Quite simply negativity is exciting.
Just look at every TV show ever made. You will not find one where people do not get angry or sad, or that isn’t meant to make the audience angry or sad, at least once per episode. What’s the best sketch on Saturday Night Live? Weekend Update; it’s the one with the raciest jokes.
It’s just our nature. As they say, a rose is not so sweet if not for its thorns.
Negativity isn’t the only exciting thing though, and interesting is a good substitute for exciting. So the more I think about OP’s question the more I wonder why we don’t see more of the alternatives.
Some examples of non-negative news that draws me in:
These can be short form articles with simple language, just like the rage bait that is so successful currently.
Besides some good points about sensational media, I think that we as humans like resolution more than stress. But since positive things resolve quickly and negative things don’t, we spend more time talking about the negative things that we’d like to see resolved.
We might do this more in face-to-face communication if it wasn’t for social norms and lack of anonymity.
Maybe we could implement a "positive posts only" day per week? Or make a tag for it? Also, you could subscribe to the Good News Network. It shows up in your email, and it's free.
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/
Edit: Also, there's a charity gaming stream going on today and tomorrow. Goodtimeswithscar from the hermitcraft server hosting it. The last time he did this, he hit his goal before they even started.
It starts in 40 minutes. Full schedule (from Scar's community post this morning): https://youtube.com/post/UgkxE5m0jQC73i2X0XRk6oyq4ZlvdSU8ohz0
Watch here:
https://twitch.tv/goodtimeswithscar
https://twitch.tv/skizzleman
https://twitch.tv/impulsesv
There is the
upliftingtag in circulation.Oh, ty. Didn't know :)
No real response from me. But I was one of those who jumped ship her back during the Reddit api debacle last year. I “think” I have noticed an uptick in more negative articles being posted vs the discussions I was seeing when I first joined. It may just be me imagining things though.
I don't think anyone posted this CGPGrey video: "This video will make you angry" about why media that elicits anger gets more view https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
I guess I'm curious what you consider news worthy and by that measurement, what do you suspect is the split between good and bad news worthy things? My impression is there is a whole lot more bad newsworthy stories because we don't seem to be solving much.
edit: I wanted to add that, while it might be uncomfortable or inconvenient, much of what people are "Pessimistic" about pertains and impacts their life greatly. It's reasonable to want to talk about things that have a big impact on yourself.
Maybe a tangential observation, but Ive noticed that when someone puts a positive post on fb, that the number of likes/loves is considerably higher than most posts, and people start to jump on the 'positivity bandwagon' with more positive comments below. I think people are looking for and hoping for positive things and they are so rare that when they happen they stand out and foster a sense of 'I guess the world isn't all bad' that we need to fend off the depressing news of most feeds.
Personally I think it's because negative experiences often spiral into rumination where as positive experiences tend to complete their lifespan satisfactorily. In negative experiences there are always things to dissect: I could have done something differently, external forces could have been different, someone else had a really negative impact on me. You can think about and talk about all the things you could have or should have changed about the senario. It's made for rehashing.
Example:
Positive - I went for a swim today and it was really nice. The water was colder than normal but there weren't many waves and the visibility was good. We swam to a mid distance spot, highfived, and returned to shore. It put me in a better mood and then I jumped into work. No real reason to think about it even though it'll have a lasting impact on my day. I probably won't even think about or talk about it again.
Negative - I went to the bank this afternoon and there was a huge line. I tried to get there at 11am but ended up hitting the lunch rush because I was delayed by really bad traffic cause by road construction on the one roadway out of our small town. So now I have to wait 45 minutes to deposit a check, which if my landlord just used direct deposit or paypal or venmo I wouldn't have to even do. But he's 92 so that won't happen. And when I got to the front of the line the bank teller was really short with me, probably because he was dealing with 8 other delayed, annoyed patrons. I've thought about everything I could have changed - from when I left, to doing it yesterday - about the external factors - traffic on the main drag, other folks needing to be seen during their lunch break - and things I'd like other to change - the attitude of my landlord towards tech, or the behavior of the teller. That's a lot to talk about!!! And this is actually a real example. One of our neighbors even made a salty instagram post about how annoying it was that there was construction on the main street out of town. Talk about engagement!
On an ideas front there is more to engage with in disagreement too. If I'm talking about biking and the person I talk to says "Oh, bikes are awesome!" Then I'll get excited and we'll probably share a little about what we like, maybe even high five, and at most make some plans to bike together! But likely we'll just be like "yeah, bikes are freakin sweet!" But if they say "Ug, I hate bikers. The get in the way and think they own the road." Well, now not only do I feel personally attacked (though I probably shouldn't) but I think they probably also advocate against things that I want. Here in our little town we're trying to get new bike lanes painted in, but there is a lot of pushback. So that statement isn't just a "I disagree with you", it becomes a "I'm going to make sure you don't get what you want". So I find myself trying to appeal to how difficult it is to feel safe when driving amongst cars, or how fun biking is and how it's great for kids, or how good infrastructure can solve their issues as well as mine so please still vote for the proposition for an expanded bike path network. And then I get home and talk to my equally bike obsessed partner. If it's positive I'd probably just say "I spoke with Kathy and she's stoked on bikes too. She ride a sweet Surly Ogre, it's awesome!" But if I've had a negative experience often I'll look for validation: "I spoke with Kathy and she said some fucked up shit about cyclists! Man, here we are in little town that is perfect for cycling but nooooo... Kathy just needs her Bro-dozer to go get groceries! I mean what we're advocating for would benefit her too, even if she isn't the one using the lanes! I mean she says that cyclists are entitled but have you seen the drivers?!?! I almost got hit twice on my ride home by people not looking turning right on red. And WE'RE the problem..." continuing for an eternity...
Anyway, that's my 2 cents.
Quick search of comments and there is only the original post with "incentive" in it and none with "disincentive". But that's basically the problem of the internet. No incentives or disincentives. Build in an economic framework that makes people want to contribute positively as opposed to negatively. If it is negative, at least provide an alternative solution to balance, or nullify, the negative. Another search reveals no one comment used the term "cost". Again, it comes down to economics. What does it cost to make the comment and what is the potential return?
Writers do respond to feedback, but it’s not easy to quantify and build an economic framework around.
Why write in the first place? We’re not being paid.
Do you write for upvotes? Hopefully not. They’re arbitrary Internet points. Getting upvotes briefly feels good and it’s feedback of a sort. If you get no upvotes, that probably means nobody saw your post or they didn’t understand it. Getting a lot of upvotes might mean you struck a nerve in some way, but why people liked it is often unclear. (This can be especially frustrating for downvotes, which we fortunately don’t have.)
What about replies? I don’t think anyone counts how many replies they get, or rates them as positive or negative, like politicians’ staff will classify the letters they get. They have an effect, though.
It would be too simple to say I like agreement and dislike disagreement. For example, there are some corrections I’m happy to get, like when I make a clear-cut mistake. I see that kind of feedback as a benefit of putting my ideas out there.
On the other hand, some kinds of feedback I don’t accept, at least not directly, because I think they’re mistaken. But being misunderstood can be a form of useful feedback. Maybe I could have avoided it?
I’m not here to upset people, but sometimes it happens, and I dislike it. After a while I do start to learn which topics will be controversial and try to handle those with more care, or I might not post about them much at all.
Other reasons to write:
What does writing cost?
People don't log onto the Internet to report how everything is good for them.
Outside of hobbies, complaints start conversations.
And we often participate without realising. I’ve gotten better at asking myself how a headline made me feel before I decide whether or not to open it, but I still fall for it sometimes.
I can definitely see this having an effect. The kind of sites I'm talking about emotionally rewards people for getting clicks, and negatively framed topics have a lower entry barrier. If I combine it with this comment's input, I think we can speculate that the mode of socialization is very different from day-to-day conversations, or online chatting spaces that are closer to more "natural" conversations. As a result, this kind of setting, unless specifically curated or moderated, tends to get dominated by such issues.
I think this tracks with some of the things I read in literature about communication on social media. A lot of them emphasized that the communication quality is poorer because of multiple reasons that make it different from "natural" communication modes. From what I gather, it's basically because the impersonal and distant structure makes it hard for the brain to approach conversations as if they are made with real people, even though it's true, and this leads to a lot of poor behavior. I think it's likely that this affects what we talk about too, maybe even dehumanizing us in the process.
Your comment, and other comments, made me think more on the structure of such sites and its effects on communication. Some things are clearer now. Thanks for the insight :)