Hajra Naz
Why do people feel the necessity to spew out what they feel is right without realizing the consequences of their comments? What’s the reason for bad behaviour on social media websites?
This question has been baffling me for some time, ever since I received a verified blue badge on my profile, something that is not so common for the profiles in the subcontinent — whenever, I comment on someone’s profile or a page, it gets highlighted and noticed. This certainly was not the case before the blue verification tick on my profile but the online challenge has just got litter bigger too.
The response to my comments on different posts has a mixed-bag reaction. Some people agree while others who disagree do not disagree for the sake of disagreement, unfortunately, some even get personal. I’ve been pointed out for my brown skin colour, my country and all the news it is surrounded with, my religion, and the list just doesn’t stop here.
Why do people feel comfortable expressing their thoughts online?
To begin with, let me clarify — I’ve always been a big fan of a few international news and tech pages, and a few celebrity pages too. I closely follow some top news channels from the U.S., sports, tech pages, celebrities, and politicians.
I’ve noticed. If people do not agree with your comment or thoughts, in the name of freedom of speech to voice their opinion, they would go to length in pulling you down to the point your ancestors would begin to ask “where the heck did that come from“?.
The most valorously unflinching comments would come from the profiles that are more perfect than realistic, absolutely idealized to say the least. Such people accentuate the positive in their online social media profiles.
Such ideal profiles are more likely to engage in conflict online. The only reason I understand their behaviour is, they feel more comfortable voicing an adversarial opinion while staying behind the curtains of social media than they would, for example — if you meet them in person and talk about a particular topic.
A lot of the comments people make when they disagree with something on social media were considered private or absolutely personal in the past generation.
Time has changed, and courtesy of social media platforms and trending online behaviour, the selection of words has changed in the digital era. It’s no more “indecent” to say the words once thought were inappropriate. As a matter of fact, it’s okay to be expressive of the way you best feel. it’s your keyboard, your internet and yes, you make the rules.
As public interest in bad, awkward behaviour is nothing new, unfortunately, social media provides a vast new venue for incivility to be published and acknowledged.
One must be worried that the bad attitude and irrational behaviour on social media could bleed out into the physical world too.
We are taught to be polite and nice in expressing our opinion but on social media, following a massive “spooky” trend, people take the liberty to express the opinion they feel best fits in.
This is a huge disconnect between real life from virtual life. The effects of bad online behaviour would naturally take their toll on real behaviour too, well, not too soon but not that far away. One begins to wonder if social media satisfies a human need for expressing their opinion or disagreement in the way they ever wanted to in order to relax their nerves and feel comfortable.
Maybe, I am thinking out too loud but I want to touch every possibility of knowing the exact reason.
The techy aspect:
As bizarre as my statement sounds, while I am still digging in deep to find a logical reason for non-rational and offbeat social media behaviour, I can safely say that another reason for bad behaviour could well be exciting others with similar interests to engage in the thread.
I’ve often observed, two negative comments make way for hundreds more with a similar attitude as if they are the birds of the same feather who flock together.
When at some point a negative comment was liked in huge numbers. A bad post or tweet was shared widely, which encouraged the individual to follow this pattern online.
After all, for someone who is just an ordinary person in real life and getting acknowledged for their pseudo-intellectualism on social media is a great achievement. They feel pride and continue with this trend and enjoy the massive content engagement, likes and shares, and most importantly, people agreeing to their statement.
Such negative behaviour behoves my question, what makes people follow this mob of negative comments? Is that a solace to their real ego hurt in the real society, perhaps their suppressed hidden feeling, or maybe they don’t actually mean it, they just follow the trend?
Whatever the real reason for this irrational online behaviour is, truth is, the words that were deemed private are being spoken openly and the negative online behaviour could well transform into a reality and that is something everybody needs to be concerned about.
People need to be gentle while voicing their opinion and expressing their disagreements. They should be careful about what they post on social media, it could be pulled against them in a real conversation where they behave nicely unknowingly, the social media is turning out to be a reflection of their true self.
