A new study links partisan activity on the Internet to widespread online toxicity, revealing that politically-engaged users exhibit uncivil behavior even in non-political discussions. The findings are based on an analysis of hundreds of millions of comments from over 6.3 million Reddit users.

Politically-engaged Redditors tend to be more toxic – even in non-political subreddits::A new study links partisan activity on the Internet to widespread online toxicity, revealing that politically-engaged users exhibit uncivil behavior even in non-political discussions. The findings are based on an analysis of hundreds of millions of comments from over 6.3 million Reddit users.

    • ericEnglish
      11•7 months ago

      If “trying to find common ground and building from there” is normal human behavior, then normal behavior is in the minority these days. I haven’t had an in-person conversation with someone that disagrees with me that is even remotely attempting to find common ground in a very long time. It’s definitely not typical in my experience.

      • @ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4•7 months ago

        The funny thing is that I read this comment, and then looked at your post history completely expecting to find an obvious troll*, but no. You are consistently and commendably courteous in your disagreements, even as you collect an Olympian number of downvotes on what seem to be very innocuous statements.

        *Every time someone says something along the lines of others not wanting to find commonality with them, I look at their post history. I am only rarely disappointed, lol

        • ericEnglish
          6•7 months ago

          I do appreciate you saying that.

          I try to be kind unless someone’s being an absolute turd, but I’m also trying to be less afraid to leave downvoted comments that I genuinely believe in. I kinda had a problem with deleting any heavily downvoted comments in my Reddit history, so Lemmy’s obfuscation of karma has been quite helpful in that regard, and it’s nice to see that some of those comments helped subvert your assumptions.

            • ericEnglish
              4•7 months ago

              It is definitely difficult to gauge a stranger’s tone. Not sure what it is exactly about the way I write, but people often suspect I’m trolling when I’m being genuine.

              As for the karma, I suspect that the total on the desktop site will be going away soon. It used to exist in the apps I use, but one day comment and post karma disappeared from Voyager, and recently Avelon dropped their summed total karma altogether. At first I resisted losing the counts, but after asking around, I learned that showing the totals is being actively discouraged to devs of the various apps because it’s thought to lead to unhealthy user behaviors. The more I thought about it, the more I agreed I’m guilty of a lot of those behaviors as a result of my 15 years on Reddit, so I’ve since tried to embrace its absence.

      • @EatATaco@lemm.eeEnglish
        3•7 months ago

        I haven’t had an in-person conversation with someone that disagrees with me that is even remotely attempting to find common ground in a very long time.

        It’s because it’s not only untrue, but almost the exact opposite of the truth. Humans tend to defend themselves when they find their beliefs threatened, not open themselves up.

        This is the heart of a lot of lots of couples therapy: learning how to express your discontent without making it about your partner. If interested, read up on “I” statements. And we’re talking about people in committed relationships shutting themselves down to each other. Imagine how easy it is to do when you label the person as “the other team.”

    • @aidan@lemmy.world
      English
      3•7 months ago

      Argumentative accounts that personally attack and downvote, even though there is absolutely zero reason - there wasn’t even any disagreement on the main points, just anger on minor details.

      That’s been here for a while. When I became a mod of c/politics some users stalked my profile to use it as proof my me being a terrible choice. They’re evidence was me not having a degree in political science, disagreeing with them on some issues, and having a complicated relationship with my mom. I said simply check the modlogs, and there haven’t been any complaints since.

    • @EatATaco@lemm.eeEnglish
      2•7 months ago

      Normal human behaviour is to try and find common ground and build from there.

      This is wildly untrue. Even outside the confines of the Internet. People tend to circle the wagons when their beliefs are threatened, rather than try and find common ground. Which is why the way we debate ( and I’m debating now) is so ineffectual. You need to guide the person to come to the conclusion themselves (which is why the Socratic method is so widely respected), not tell them they are wrong and you are right and here’s why. It’s a low success method.

      On the Internet, it’s even less true. Now I’m just a dehumanized bunch of words, not even an individual, so your mind is rushing to try and figure out to categorize me so you can make assumptions about me. This just compounds the above issues.

      Your argument seems to rest on the claim that this is atypical human behavior. This is a false assumption, and thus conclusions based on it are faulty.