time spent offline

Do you ever see something extremely outrages online— be it a Facebook post, a YouTube video, or a comment— and feel greatly irritated and annoyed? There have been many times where I have come across such content that elicit strong negative emotions in me, where I have felt personally attacked and insulted. After some internal debate and careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that extreme opinions are often over-exaggerated and logically flawed and inconsistent, and only exist because of the safety and anonymity online platforms provide. Experience has shown me that extreme world views and opinions are often the loudest online, and they aren’t worth my attention, nor a prolonged reaction out of me.

One thing I have learned from being off social media for three years is that extreme world views mostly only exist online. In today’s attention economy, outrage, extremism, and sensational news generates the most amount of clicks. On a basic primal instinct, it makes sense that we are highly responsive to emotions that alert us to danger. Fear is a good motivator to outrun a predator. Social media amplifies these elements of human nature to keep us hooked. As the New York Times article, How Everyday Social Media Users Become Real-World Extremists, eloquently put it, “everyday users might not intend to participate in online outrage, much less lead it. But the incentive structures and social cues of algorithm-driven social media sites like Facebook can train them over time — perhaps without their awareness — to pump up the anger and fear. Eventually, feeding into one another, users arrive at hate speech on their own. Extremism, in other words, can emerge organically.”

During the 2016 U.S. election, I was a heavy Twitter user. It is an understatement to say that everyone, including myself, had a strong opinion about the election, specifically and especially regarding Donald Trump. I read tweets about the guy every single day for well over a year. Someone, somewhere, somehow always had something to say about Trump and the election. So, did I. It was the thing to do. After a while, I began to form the belief that everyone was either passionately against Trump or a neo-Nazi white supremacist who supported him. I came to believe that there could only be two sides when it came to Trump: you either hated the guy with a passion, or wore M.A.G.A hats and hated minorities with a passion. Accordingly, there was no way Trump was going to win that election. Most of America hated Trump— that’s what my Twitter feed fed me all day, every day— or at the very least wasn’t a neo-Nazi white supremacist.

So, imagine my utter devastation when news broke that Trump won the 2016 U.S. presidential election? Something didn’t add up. Something didn’t feel right, and I did the only thing I felt I had power over at the time: I quit the news and shortly after deleted my Twitter account. After I quit Twitter, and my FOMO eventually wore off, I was pleased to find extreme political views weren’t spewed off every moment of every day in the real world. In fact,  it was rare I heard about Trump; from either side of the debate. I began to go days, and I mean days, without hearing about Trump, to the point I often forgot his existence. The contrast between Twitter and the real world was stark and refreshing. I felt relieved!

That experience showed me people tend to be less extreme with their world views in real life, and are more willing to consider different point of views and have nuanced conversations: This could be because people are less transparent with their opinions in real life. It could also be that despite what online platforms might make us think, most people are busy with their lives to dedicate a huge amount of time and energy to nurturing extreme political views on Twitter. I would like to believe that for most of us, when the alarm goes off at six in the morning and we have to get the kids ready for school and ourselves for work, the first thing we think about isn’t, ‘dang, I hate white people’ or ‘I hate immigrants,’ but ‘shit, I forgot to turn the coffee machine on.’ There might be some individuals like that and I say, please seek immediate help.

It is worth mentioning that concerns over online dissent going underground and having a negative impact on society is an important discussion that deserves careful analysis. In other words, I’m not saying ignoring extreme opinions online is the answer to the issue. Still, it is a viable alternative for a purely selfish reason, sustaining my sanity.

Things I have found useful for sustaining my sanity while engaging with extreme views online:

→ Minimize engagement with extreme views online, and avoid having extreme opinions on things you have minimal knowledgeable about: Can you explain your idea in simple and concise terms that a 5-year-old can understand?

→ Laugh or log off.

→ Remind yourself it is completely okay to not have an opinion on any given topic, issue, or thing. It’s okay to say, ‘I’m not sure about that,’ ‘I haven’t thought about that,’ or some variation of that.

→ Remember: opinions are like a**holes, don’t be one. If you won’t say it in real life to a real person, don’t say it online.

Sooooo, what should you think about Donald Trump? It doesn’t matter (to the point of this article, anyway). What matters is that we remain committed to logic, reason, and critical thinking, and open to opposing views and dialogues. It’s not easy, and it’s not comfortable, but it can help with, let’s say, the shit-show that continues to be U.S politics. At the very least, it will help you remain sane in an increasingly insane world.