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I think the platforms people use are also partially to blame. I’ve noticed that if I go on any political post on Twitter, regardless of whose side it was on, you will always, without fail, see replies of people who disagree with them.

It seems negativity creates engagement, more engagement means more ads shown to them, more ads means more money.

I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence, but since I stopped using social media, I’ve been a lot less aggressive towards people who disagree with me or don’t know or understand something I do, and notice many are very quick to insult me during an argument or get angry over the smallest things.

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~rusty wrote:

Twitter is definitely the worst one in that regard. Somehow the climate of it all just cultivates arguments, and the algorithms boosting tweets without knowledge of the user only add to it.

Altho it has to be said that previously the most notoriously toxic platform in that regard used to be Tumblr (which imo got much better nowadays, but not completely without conflict of course), and that site used to have no algorithm and no marketability, so that's not the only thing.

I have to admit that I'm guilty; I'm now recalling that at a certain stage in my life I processed my own anger issues by going onto the internet and purposefully seeking arguments (joining in rather than starting them, I never fell as low as outright trolling), and I have to say, it's addictive. At some point I had to unlearn it and physically stop myself from engaging.

I won't be surprised if that's also true for some of those people, and the way social media does encourage such behavior just fuels them.

That being said, I still have to wonder, just HOW bad it has to be for some people to go out of their way to be constantly aggressive or spend literal years spreading negativity about a thing they didn't like... I suppose I answered my own question at this point - it's addictive, it's encouraged and it also gives one a sense of superiority over the "incorrect" ones they're "destroying with arguments".

I still have the urge to ask a rethorical WHY though, 'cause boy, is that a terrible mindset to live in!

(I deleted my twitter some time ago, and the relief is palpable.)