Gregory's ServerSometimes people are like "you act like someone who is having a conversation with you online is supposed to exert cognitive effort to learn something about who you are" and I'm like????? Yes??????
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If you launched a reply with a misconception say "sorry"! If you ask me to teach you something say "thank you"! If someone has opened up to share an emotion say "that must be hard"! We're in a relationship if we're talking. A ridiculous, fleeting, tiny relationship, but still. I look at every replier I don't know to see if they follow me -- that's cog effort too! I am way colder to the people who don't follow me because I assume we have no reciprocity! Would you text me like this? God I get outgrouped so hard on mastodon it just cracks me up. It's honestly not to the level of trolling which is why standard social media language doesn't fit well to describe my personal experiences here. But it's OUTGROUPING and that's real. It's so funny when I respond with just as much cold bluntness as someone replied to me with and suddenly it's like "my god how dare" But, many people ingroup and those are the folks who stick around following this shouty version of me 🤗 I see you! idk y'all, I just like conversations and don't like being an object. Many of us are like this I think.  @grimalkina I think so much about the socializing afflictions people show on here and am still not sure how to describe them. Like truly people are not ever learning or using social cues, boundaries, and other very basic childhood era social consents. It's worrying!! @aetataureate thank you for affirming this! I interpret it as a kind of contemptuous dismissal of those kinds of cues (which matter a lot to me given that I often study their impact) which is just mind-boggling to me. Sometimes for sure there are obvious innocent mistakes (I make them too, we all have perception filters sometimes) but I was thinking about when people seem to fully fail to correct or dispute the impact of these behaviors on the receiver @grimalkina the fedi has a huge component of people utterly convinced of their own right-ness, that when you’re “correct”, manners and tone don’t matter, and at the same time, more able to be appalled at the slightest pushback than a stereotypical Victorian spinster. They are just ridiculous.  It feels like fairly slow oral communication to me! Really all that's missing is picking up the tab or buying the next round. I've promised myself to think about datenight today and not dwell only on the failure of our republic today, I hope that you can do something similar! @mycotropic gosh so much of the time I am like, "this is a conversation for drinks not this post" :). I am doing some nice things thank you!! Writing a paper I am really loving today  I'm here to find, follow, and learn from those unlike me. And to boost others, promote facts and equality, and ❤ photos of kids & dogs.  @grimalkina I read the rest too, but I want to reply to this specifically. I'm not sure that's true. I'm not sure that that kind of social life "naturally exists" for everyone or that they learned the mechanism. Besides the way you're writing and other self presentation is already broadcasting some image implicitly. E.g. if someone displays personal beliefs with clothing, do you care why they hold those beliefs? Or do you just recognize, deal with it and move on? Made me think though. @bmaxv I'm not sure I'm following. Your second point seems to affirm the existence of social and communicative information. But your first -- you think we exist in some kind of inchoate madness where we have no cognitive and psychological apparatus that gives us social mechanisms of communication? The fact that you and I are speaking in mutually understandable sentences belies that. If you think that we are just so far apart in our mental models of how humans work we probably won't agree @grimalkina There is certainly an intersection of beliefs and methods of communication, otherwise it wouldn't work. But I'm not sure the connection between "someone is saying something online" and "it is *necessary* to learn more about that person and why they are saying it" is as strict and strong. Even if we don't agree, I wanted to sort... throw a point in there, that that assumption ("supposed to exert...") may not always be true. To help refine that mental model I guess? @bmaxv I think I'm following. I suppose when I say "some of the same social mechanisms", to me this modifies the statement enough that it's not saying ONLINE IS EXACTLY REAL LIFE CONVO! THE SAME! I would never walk up to you on the street and have this convo. I also would leave this comment hanging and go get food with no guilt. Different rules that way! But my example is more like: a thank you online still has a social impact on the hearer. A blunt query still carries information. @grimalkina I like it when people tell me about themselves, but I'm really bad at requesting/inviting/encouraging it. @grimalkina I follow your posts with interests. I just find it hard to understand your perspective sometimes, such us in this case. I wonder if it's an expectation mismatch on how social media works (I wrote something before about IRC versus more Twitter-style netiquette). I get though that it's unpleasant to be on the wrong side of this, and for what it's worth I am sorry if this reply is adding to it. @modulux this reply doesn't bother me at all. It's really clear to me that you are expressing a desire to understand and connect and I appreciate it. Think of it like this: it hurts my feelings when some people criticize things I say, or dispute things I share, but then never follow up to say things like "oh, I am sorry I misunderstood that" or "I appreciate you explaining that", or "I read your bio and realized you actually do x not y". @modulux I absolutely think it's a mismatch about expectations on social media. I just think that I have a right to my own opinion about it :). My goal is not to be perfectly perceived but to be treated as a full human being rather than an object. Others' goals might be to get information with minimal effort on their part. I am claiming that has a social cost, when folks on this platform often act like it's free! @modulux this is an interesting perspective! It sounds very lonely to me I must say. While I do think for me there is a large element of detachment (of course, I am aware I'm speaking in large part to strangers, and frequently ignore 'randos'), I find it mentally important to imagine the real people -- some of whom find me in real life at a work conference sometimes!! Or have weight on how my work is perceived with their words  @grimalkina @modulux an ex of mine once explained to me that she found it really hard to think of anything (person or otherwise) on the other end of the keyboard as real. Given that I tend to assume that the dog nobody knows about on the internet is a genuine person, it was a significant clash of perspective. On the other hand it explained much of what I could see. That all said treating the other as person is the only way we can bring about something better. And I appreciate the call to do so. |
I don't know what you are all here sharing thoughts online FOR, but my assumption is that we are in general trying to use some of the same social mechanisms that we rely on for like.......social life in general