Last week, I talked about why it’s best to avoid fighting online. This week, I want to bring up some useful things to do online instead. Here are my suggestions.
- Starve the trolls instead of feeding them. Some people intentionally interact with online trolls in the hopes that doing so will prevent them from bothering (or even scamming) unsuspecting and more vulnerable folks. The problem with this is that engaging trolls doesn’t prevent them from going after multiple people at once. Some have multiple electronic devices going simultaneously across many different online profiles for that very purpose. Additionally, like all other kinds of fighting, engaging with them just fuels their egos and makes them continue their path of destruction, which increases the chances that someone will get hurt. If someone’s primary motive for trolling is to get attention, then depriving them of that attention is the best way to get them to stop.
- If you must respond, respond with tactical empathy. You might be wondering what “tactical empathy” is. In his phenomenal book Never Split the Difference, former hostage negotiator Chris Voss defines it as “understanding the feelings and mindset of another in the moment and also hearing what is behind those feelings so you increase your influence in all the moments that follow.” Curiosity is an essential component of tactical empathy, and it can be expressed with an open-ended question (“What makes you feel this way?”), with a label (“It sounds like/looks like/seems like you feel (insert emotion(s) here).”), or with mirroring (repeating a few key words that the other person just said). These will help keep a conversation civil or deescalate it if it has already gotten hostile and will also likely give you more information about where somebody is coming from. All of those are much more useful than butting heads and screaming into the void.
- Use the internet for meaningful connections. Most folks used the various social media platforms that debuted in the early to mid 2000s to reconnect and keep in touch with family members, friends, schoolmates, etc. This is my approach with social media. At this point, I usually make three posts a day (a funny post, a sincere post, and a picture of my dog Sawyer), and I avoid negativity wherever I can. Social media provides a wonderful opportunity for everyone to share life with each other instead of engaging in hostility or anything else that makes the world worse.
- Pursue useful or just plain fun activities online. There is a wealth of information online that can help you improve life for yourself and those close to you. There are also countless fun activities online, from games to recipes to party activities and all other kinds of enjoyable content. Whether productive, enjoyable, or both, any of those are better options than using the internet to fight.