Comments, comments are no fun…

For a long time, I’ve known not to read the comments section of any blog post or news article I’ve found online. People seem to lose any sense of decency and decorum as soon as they start typing in that little box at the bottom of the page. Turns out, I’m not the only one who avoids them.
I just came across an article on fastcompany.com posted by Drake Baer that talks about why people can be so mean and awful in the comments section.
The Psychology Behind Why Online Comments Turn Normal People Into Ghastly Ghouls
Here’s a little snippet: “…the more removed we are from the richness of face-to-face interaction, the more likely we are to offend people…”
As I read that last part, I was reminded of a great Louis C.K. interview on Conan that I saw where he says something really similar but in the context of his kids owning cell phones at an early age:
“They don’t look at people when they talk to them and they don’t build that empathy. You know, kids are mean, and it’s because they’re trying it out. They look at a kid and they go, ‘you’re fat’ and then they see the kids face scrunch and go ‘ooh, that doesn’t feel good to make a person do that.’ But they got to start with doing the mean thing, but when they write ‘you’re fat,’ then they just go, ‘mmm, that was fun, I like that.’”