...or step away from the keyboard until you can at least behave in a socially acceptable manner! Wow, it never ceases to amaze me how petty and immature people can be online. These are alleged ADULTS...and astonishingly (to ME anyway) is that when you take them to task for it, their almost uniform response is "It's just the internet!"
I've said before that my daughter spends a great deal of time in internet chat rooms...that's her connection to the outside world. She has two auto-immune diseases, so her body isn't really able to deal with the germs that most of us come into contact with regularly...a cold can put her down for over a month! So she doesn't go out much...it's a giant Petri Dish out there as far as she's concerned.
Some of these "alleged adults" in the chat rooms are the most belligerent, hostile, selfish, rude and just plain nasty people I've ever seen or heard! And their justification...? "It's just the internet!" Holy Shit! That makes it O.K.?! Having internet access is NOT a license to be an asshole!
And I know it's not just chat rooms...a friend blogged recently about a friend of HERS that has started a fight on Facebook.
What is wrong with these people?! Don't they realize that there is a PERSON in front of the screen at the other end of their vitriol? Would they say the same things if they were face-to-face with the other person? Yes, I know, in some cases they would...but the other individual would at least have the satisfaction of being able to respond accordingly...be it to walk away, or to punch them in the throat!
This is not Trolling...an Internet Troll can be ignored, and will usually go away if no one responds. This is often a vicious personal attack from the safety of their home/space, secure in the knowledge that the other person CAN'T reach through and punch them in the throat! I wish we could petition the ISPs of these morons to have them put in a "Time Out" when they abuse the internet! And it IS abuse...there's no other way to put it.
Jen is a Moderator in the chat room she hangs out in, and she's gotten very good at NOT allowing people there to be contentious or abusive there...and if they are, she DOES have the means to put them in "Time Out"! And she uses it. I'm very proud of her, and I guess what I want to say is: We, as parents and internet users, have a responsibility to teach our children and any others who might learn from us that interaction and conversation on the internet should be just as civilized and polite as it would be in our own living room.
That's pretty much how our kids first learn to interact...is by watching and listening to us converse with others. Maybe there needs to be a course in 'Internet Communication' starting in Middle School, that teaches common internet courtesy and respect for others. Yeah, I know...it's pretty much up to US...
OK, I'm getting down from my soapbox now...I've ranted long enough...but DAMN, I do wish those people would grow up!
I think the reason that folks are so bloody nasty on Facebook, Twitter and in chatrooms is because of the internet. They feel ballsy knowing they may never have to meet face to face who they are insulting.My friend keeps stirring it up even though one person she is fighting with lives in Australia and won't be in Canada to visit until June. She's already told her and anyone else who will listen that she wants to fight her. *crickets*This woman is 45 years old and she's behaving like a 14 year old. As for the boyfriend drama, she figures that since I am good friends with him and talk with him privately, that I should make her case and "steer" him into what she wants. I don't think so. So she makes my life hell.I laugh when she asks when I am moving back to my hometown. WTF would I want to do that? I would be caught in in never ending bullshit. As it is now I am involved in internet bullshit.
ReplyDelete