Discussions and Everyday Egotism

Since the time of ancient Greece and maybe much earlier, discussions have always been the method of choice for advancing human thoughts. This hasn’t changed much in the present and will probably be still true in the future as long as humans generally remain as social beings.

For some people, there is nothing more invigorating than being a participant or a spectator to an exchange between two or more minds. A good exchange would seem to be independent of whether the minds at the exchange are in tune or at opposition to one another as long as they are open and seek above all to learn and grow from the exchange.

Of course, we cannot rely on minds to be always open because of factors such as pride, or weakness, or whatever else. When one or more minds are closed during an exchange, what was a mental ballet can suddenly turn into a mental car crash. This is not the best of things since people tend to get hurt in crashes and – with the dawn of the age of the Internet – cyberspace seems to be the highway in which these crashes often occur.

The instant gratification of push-button thought projection coupled with the intoxicating power of anonymity seem to be the major reason why a lot of people are constantly finding themselves in or actually making online trouble.

A lot of you may be shaking your heads in disagreement right now about you being instantly gratified by push-button thought projection or you being intoxicated by anonymity. You are simply not that kind of person. You weigh your words carefully. You always seek to be open-minded and always try not to offend. In spite of this though, you still find yourself unwittingly in or making online chaos. Why is this so?

Psychologists may have the answer on this one. Since the emergence of the Internet as one of our prime venues for exchanges, psychologists have been studying the phenomena of how most people are overconfident in their ability to communicate over the Internet. Taking into consideration how the faceless delivery of the computer screen can convert the wittiest of prose to a dead joyless thing, this overestimation of one’s ability to communicate makes the Internet rife with misunderstandings waiting to happen.

The June 2005 issue of the magazine “Psychology Today” has an article about this and mentions this phenomenon as “everyday egocentrism”. It seems that human nature usually gets the better of us when we read online messages - especially when these messages are instantaneous - since that usually forces us to make snap judgments. Having these judgments created in the company of faceless souls and a vacuum of information about them we will tend to not see beyond our own thoughts.

A group of psychologists has suggested an exercise to help people overcome their tendency toward “everyday egocentrism”. The exercise is done by first separating people into two groups. A group then writes the other group messages. These messages are to be read to the other group in a deadpan tone devoid of any hint of emotion. The groups alternate in this activity.

The activity reinforces the reality that there is indeed a human face beyond the seemingly monotone unfeeling voice we encounter over the Internet. It also reminds us that we need to give extra attention to the actual message itself in its context rather than the perceived messenger.

Going beyond the exercise, the psychologists in the study have suggested that the next time you find yourself ready to shoot off a message into cyberspace…. stop…. just stop for a few seconds. During that pause, try to read the message to yourself in a deadpan emotionless tone and ask yourself how that message seems to come off to you then. That’s probably how other people will see it. If that’s fine with you, press “send”. Otherwise, you can edit or just press “delete”.

Doing that might do wonders for your cyber peace of mind and would help foster some great discussions.