!http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i199/bubcar9/AngryB.jpg! <font size="4"color="orange">With a presidential campaign, health care and the gun control debate in the news these days, one can't help getting sucked into the flame wars that are Internet comment threads. But psychologists say this addictive form of vitriolic back and forth should be avoided — or simply censored by online media outlets — because it actually damages society and mental health. These days, online comments "are extraordinarily aggressive, without resolving anything," said Art Markman, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. "At the end of it you can't possibly feel like anybody heard you. Having a strong emotional experience that doesn't resolve itself in any healthy way can't be a good thing." If it's so unsatisfying and unhealthy, why do we do it? A perfect storm of factors come together to engender the rudeness and aggression seen in the comments' sections of Web pages, Markman said. First, commenters are often virtually anonymous, and thus, unaccountable for their rudeness. Second, they are at a distance from the target of their anger — be it the article they're commenting on or another comment on that article — and people tend to antagonize distant abstractions more easily than living, breathing interlocutors. Third, it's easier to be nasty in writing than in speech, hence the now somewhat outmoded practice of leaving angry notes (back when people used paper), Markman said. "FullArticle":http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-is-everyone-on-the-internet-so-angry</font><br>

Perhaps it itself isn’t damaging to mental health, perhaps the underlying issue of the poster is the one not being resoloved, and their online anger is a manifestation of those unresolved issues instead of the initial online issue.

Or perhaps the poster/s are just arseholes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_og14JAlBk

Divine Angel said:

Perhaps it itself isn’t damaging to mental health, perhaps the underlying issue of the poster is the one not being resoloved, and their online anger is a manifestation of those unresolved issues instead of the initial online issue.

Or perhaps the poster/s are just arseholes:

or perhaps the perception of angst is in the eye of the beholder.

roughbarked said:

or perhaps the perception of angst is in the eye of the beholder.

That’s true too. I recently read an article about cyber-rape. It’s quite lengthy but here’s the synopsis on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_in_Cyberspace

People are rude and aggressive because they’re cowardly keyboard warriors who’s comments don’t run the risk of a punch in the kidneys if they said what they said in real life.

STFU hippy

OCDC said:

STFU hippy

kidney punch

Dropbear said:

People are rude and aggressive because they’re cowardly keyboard warriors who’s comments don’t run the risk of a punch in the kidneys if they said what they said in real life.

That’s what yo’ momma said…

Everyone?

Begs the question.