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.”