Posted on 02/25/2014 11:33:55 PM PST by tired&retired
Psychological studies show that swearing and name-calling in Internet discussions shut down our ability to think.
2 professors of science communication at the University of Wisconsin, Madison - Dominique Brossard and Dietram A. Scheufele - wrote in the New York Times last year:
In a study published online last month in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, we and three colleagues report on an experiment designed to measure what one might call “the nasty effect.”
The results were both surprising and disturbing. Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself.
In the civil group, those who initially did or did not support the technology — whom we identified with preliminary survey questions — continued to feel the same way after reading the comments. Those exposed to rude comments, however, ended up with a much more polarized understanding of the risks connected with the technology.
Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they’d previously thought.
While it’s hard to quantify the distortional effects of such online nastiness, it’s bound to be quite substantial, particularly — and perhaps ironically — in the area of science news
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
Not quite accurate, but it doesn’t matter. I did not respond to the BS comment as it was sarcasm.... I commented that the author was in the same boat as me... totally swamped...
The article is accurate. However it has the greatest impact when you confront and tweak the other person. I have no need to play games with people and try not to get people emotionally riled up. I can do it when necessary in legal negotiations and have done it often. As my screen name indicates.... I’m tired of that type of work.
At the same time, I have studied stage hypnosis, group psychology, and mind control techniques to help people not fall prey to the manipulation. It’s a two edge sword as I must be careful to not share with ill motived people.
The technique outlined in the article is thousands of years old. It’s one of the main techniques in Sun Tzu’s “Art of War.” Divine your enemy with propaganda. Even the Apostle Paul used it to split the Saducees and Pharisees when they were trying him as a Christian shortly after his conversion on the road to Damascus.
Divine your enemy = Divide your enemy!!!... too tired here....
“I don’t know what history you and others have, but I can tell you from my experience on FR that FReepers don’t much appreciate being psychoanalyzed remotely. It pisses them off, and is a good way to guarantee there will be a s***storm of bad reaction.”
Tell that to all those voices in my head!!!!
>> I did not respond to the BS comment as it was sarcasm...
True, but you’re treating a vulgar term in an acceptable way.
You also demonstrated “trollish” behavior by citing my posts from other threads instead of speaking to what I posted here. By intimating that I’m a candidate for what the article describes as a sicko, you proved the misleading message of the article that makes the bold judgement: brazen commentary has no place in public discourse, and its purveyors are sickos.
There are other failures described in the article; the study itself — it was intentionally misleading for “scientific” purposes of course. There’s also the presumption that influential, hostile commentary is intrinsically bad since it manipulates the opinions of others. But what of the articles themselves? Cannot evil be disguised in the form of eloquent prose ensconced with the ‘official’ branding of govt, academia, and think-tanks?
If it’s truth we’re after, the article fails to define the necessary rules to reveal it.
An interesting article about why trolls start flame wars is posted. In no time at all, the idiots emerge from the woodwork to start throwing insults at one another. Quite insightful and quite entertaining, in a sick sort of way.
No wonder Jim has trouble reaching his donation goals every quarter.
;-)
And to think that they made me turn in all my hand grenades when I left Vietnam. What a waste of good frags.
Tacticalogic.
And log onto some LENR threads, you’ll see some very unconservative jerks operating.
There used to be a bunch of trolls operating on Crevo threads; Jimrob got rid of many of them (they started Darwin Central) but there’s still a few.
There was a bunch of anti-birth certificate trolls, too. Concern trolls, worried about how it “made FR look”. But now there’s tens of millions of birthers, so their point is moot.
Mind you, I would never deliberately post a provocative statement just to get a rise out of somebody. That’s the sort of thing a gay 9mm-shooting neo-Confederate Marine Yankees fan would do.
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