It's only the Internet. Why do people care so much about what others write? Why do they take it so seriously? My response would have to be, "if I didn't care about what I am posting, why bother posting it in the first place". Unfortunately, I have witnessed a lot of bad behavior here on Eons and elsewhere. Internet social networks and discussion forums have been around for awhile now, and there are all sorts of definitions to the various internet creatures who visit them. If it is a political discussion group, you expect a certain amount of disagreement, but it can, and should, always remain civil. After all, we are adults here, aren't we? I can respect someone whose political views differ from mine as long as they remain civil about it. But it is not just happening in the political groups here. To me, the ultimate in bad behavior is taking a discussion and changing the topic completely, in other words, hijacking a thread. It's kind of like sitting at the dinner table with several people and carrying on your own conversation in the middle of another discussion. It's rude, inappropriate, and childish. You wouldn't do that in person, why should the internet be any different? Then, there are those who choose to blast others by trying to invalidate information they are sharing. If the topic doesn't interest you, just walk on by. You don't need to respond to every post in your group, especially if your point is to make the poster look bad. What ends up happening is you are the one who ends up looking stupid. Some may say that "internet junkies" just have too much time on their hands. Maybe some of us do, but most of us have lives as well. The internet offers social contact with people we don't know, but we still need to remember that there are faces behind those computers. They are real people who may be stuck at home for a variety of reasons. They could be handicapped and this is one of their few outlets to the outside world. They may be in-between jobs and using the internet for job searching or other research. They might be alone and the internet is an outlet for them. Isn't that the idea of belonging to a social network in the first place? Or, perhaps they might be interested in what YOU may have to say.
