http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/five-emot...-internet/

“... The car collision of appetite and discomfort one feels simultaneously when using the internet to seek and consume images or information that may be considered unseemly or inappropriate. The individual might be viewing a YouTube video of an extremely uncool musical performance, an awkwardly poor ‘stand-up’ performance by a friend or something else they clicked on to be polite during an IM conversation to which the individual would have been unlikely to have navigated on his or her own. Despite the fact that the individual is alone, possibly wearing headphones, or otherwise in a state of adequate privacy, the individual still feels slightly self-conscious in a way that is only possible in the silent digital echo chamber of the internet, under the internet’s populist eye. The individual is unlikely to be able to make more than a cursory assessment of the offending media, and may experience the sensation of ‘suffering through’ it despite the fact that the individual chose, or believes they chose, to view it... ”

Related: Douglas Coupland's ‘A Dictionary of the Near Future’

Very interesting. I can certainly relate to some of those.

I laughed at this one. A little true, but not completely true for me.

"The sense of fatigue and disconnect one experiences after emitting a massive stream of content only to hit some kind of ‘wall’ and forget and/or abandon the entire thing. Most commonly encountered when a person starts to type a comment on a website, such as a carefully-considered response to a news article, generally for the purpose of joining a discussion taking place in a comments section, although this might apply to a blog post or Facebook ‘note’ if the individual is in the habit of generating those on at least a semi-regular basis. The person starts out with a tangible urge to produce a written argument and writes with intensity and immediacy until they notice they have written some 2-4 paragraphs, at which point begin feeling self-conscious about what they have written and wonder whether the length of their comment is appropriate."

When I stop myself, hit ctrl-a and DEL, my main emotion is relief, because I realize I've just stopped myself from needlessly getting involved in something... usually something annoying with a drama-filled center. (Like 57% of the Internet. And I just made that up.)

The other feeling I feel is irritation, in that I've just wasted 15-20 minutes typing up something because a post triggered me to write a wall of text, when I could more efficiently use my time to do things like study, go outside, study, clean the house, study, wax the cat, or study. So rather my original feelings of anger or irritation at whatever triggered the wall-o-text in the first place are transferred onto myself for wasting time to respond to whatever it was that tried to suck me in in the first place.

If that makes sense. I don't care. I'm not going to edit it now. (I lied. I edited it a little bit.)

omg. im a NORMAL PERSON!!!!!

rich_f Wrote:When I stop myself, hit ctrl-a and DEL, my main emotion is relief, because I realize I've just stopped myself from needlessly getting involved in something...

I'm starting to worry about the fact that I never delete... I always get involved. My life is sad.

I've been on the Internet off and on since Relay Interchat Network in 1989. There was OMGDRAMA then, and there's still OMGDRAMA now.

Surprisingly, these events follow remarkably similar patterns for the most part, and are relatively predictable. The most important thing I've learned is to try to spot it as quickly as possible, run the hell away from it, and not get involved.

That, and liberal use of ctrl-a / DEL.

Blahah Wrote:I'm starting to worry about the fact that I never delete... I always get involved. My life is sad.

I am also kinda guilty of that - thankfully, I have pretty much given up on political discussions due to my increasing apathy, but I still occasionally get caught up in debates on linguistics. Sigh...