Source: DALL-E

This was originally posted to Medium on May 19, 2023 (https://medium.com/non-monetized-together/want-to-have-fewer-toxic-online-discussions-work-on-writing-without-a-rough-draft-6d30bfe32500?source=friends_link&sk=dd7e0c163d05b4d1b14d32e769257ff2)

#WritingOnSocialMedia #SocialMediaEtiquette #TheEducationSystem #InternetDiscussion #InternetComments

How We Communicate Online Is Important

Today’s world is mostly shaped by what people say on the Internet. Even though it is hard to find trustworthy statistics on social media scope and usage, anybody can see that it has become the norm for people to use social media. Almost all decisions people make in the physical world are influenced by the media either directly or indirectly, with social media being one of the most-consumed forms of media. From this we can see that much of our lives are shaped by what we see on social media.

Especially important are discussion-centred platforms like Facebook or Twitter. Yet many have noticed that Internet comments tend to be more toxic than other forms of communication. Because of the way social media leaves its marks on other areas of society, this is very concerning and could possibly lead to a dystopian society.

The reason I joined Medium was because I noticed that I am one of the few people who lean toward co-operation and civility when I’m typing out comments. I knew that I could resist the negative influence of online comments by starting an online community centred around freeing others from these influences.

Ignoring Advice From School

How am I able to consistently keep my online posts in check? By ignoring a piece of writing advice that I was told all the time at school — to make a rough draft of my essay before writing a clean draft.

I thought it would be a waste of time to rewrite an essay like that, so I always began writing my essays in full sentences and paragraphs. Then I would re-read it a few times, and once I couldn’t find any new ways to improve it, I would hand it in. Most of my assignments were essays, so I would get a lot of experience with this method, and it would become the natural way I would write when typing on a computer.

Positive Results

This helped me behave more appropriately online because it turned writing into a very deliberate, careful, slow process for me. Because I didn’t have a rough draft to refer to, I had to put a lot of thought into how I chose my words and phrased my sentences so I could get a good grade on the essay. Since I spent so much time writing in school, it ended up characterizing how I write whenever I use a computer keyboard. Now when I type a comment on the Internet, I find it extremely difficult to write anything without pausing every few seconds to consider what I am going to say next. I always feel an urge to type and retype parts of sentences before choosing the option that sounds the best. If I ever get a job where I need to type messages quickly, I might have to break this habit, in which case I would create a writing template I can look at while typing my message.

However, when I am communicating online, my writing habit ensures that I won’t send many regrettable, impulsive posts to devices around the world. Instead, I can communicate on the Internet clearly and productively because I learned how to write carefully without a rough draft.

Conclusion

In order to fix the problem of toxic online discussion spaces, the education system must teach students to write without a rough draft. If you’re in school and you care about this issue, maybe you can try avoiding rough drafts to see how it goes. The more you use this method, the better you will get at it. Not only can it help you be a better writer on social media, but you might make a more beneficial influence on society too.

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[NASA/Unsplash]

Take a look at this discussion thread started by a librarian who has been requested a book that is so elusive that it can’t be found anywhere.

Now I can tell that this mystery isn’t going to go viral like some other examples because it wasn’t posted to a mainstream website and because it’s not a memorable example. Despite this, nine other people have replied with suggestions. The linked thread is an example of someone forming an equal power dynamic with the people who respond to them instead of trying to post something that interests a lot of people.

There are many discussions online that are just like this, where somebody posts something that will be significant to very few people but puts the respondents in a position where they can lead the discussion. However, this approach to discussion is usually limited to contexts where the initial poster is looking for help from respondents. The initial poster feels stuck solving a mystery on their own, so they make a post about it. Their mystery lacks viral qualities such as nostalgia, suspiciousness, familiarity, or strangeness, but usually other people will help them out anyways.

Compared to the discussions on the rest of the public Web, these interactions are built on a more equal relationship between initial poster and respondent. Yet they are almost always carried out in cases when the conversation starter needs help from others and so has no choice but to put commenters in a more powerful position.

If you think about Medium or Instagram or Twitter, most of the public initial posts are people doing something to grab people’s attention or to get some sort of emotional response from viewers. They are putting the spotlight on themselves. There’s nothing wrong with this, but a lot of people forget that social media can also be used to highlight the repliers’ contributions to the discussion.

I feel like Nonmonetized Together stands out from other blogs for this reason. The posts on NMT aren’t the author’s posts, they are discussions for the community. This makes the comment section become less about the initial poster (like most of social media) and more about the community (like the librarian forum).

I encourage people to expand on the information in the blog’s initial posts, place it in a new context, make tangentially related replies, and respond with a different purpose than the article (but not with a different purpose than NMT). If people respond with these comments, they will make it so the comment section is not just responding to NMT but contributing to it.

Hopefully Nonmonetized Together will help you feel less invisible.

#Discussion #OnlineDiscussion #InternetComments #SocialMedia #Internet

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