Social media is dragging discourse

What is it about social media that makes people so nasty?

The same thing could be asked about the comments section on any news site on the internet.

(It’s appropriate to note at this point that this newspaper’s website doesn’t include a comments feature. We’d seen how quickly those descend into a cesspool of abuse and figured we’d pass on that particular aspect of 21st century communications. Still, comments do come the newspaper’s way via Facebook and other social media.)

But the questions stand: Why is it that the venom is so quick to come out?

When Facebook was launched, the idea was that it would link together young people of college age or thereabouts, but it quickly morphed into a medium dominated by those young people’s parents — or grandparents.

And when comments sections were added to news sites and blogs, the idea was to get feedback and suggestions.

Instead, it was a quick descent to the sewer.

Spend five minutes in a news site comment section and you’ll soon need to take a shower. Bigotry, misogyny and hatred — virulent hatred — rule the day.

And while Facebook has successfully replaced the back fence as a source of gossip and provided an invaluable way for family and friends to stay in touch despite the miles between them, it often goes quickly sour itself.

Just ask any elected official, local, state or national.

Something about the anonymity or near-anonymity of the internet, a place where pseudonyms are commonplace, unleashes the inner jackass. Folks who ordinarily would come across as sane and reasonable are suddenly as mad as the Red Queen screaming, “Off with her head!”

The same people, if they found themselves attending a public meeting and sharing their concerns with elected officials, would most likely be civil, polite and open-minded.

Online, however, is another matter.

Masked as if they were wearing Klan hoods, they let it rip.

Bile, personal attacks and crazy conspiracies come boiling out.

And democracy suffers.

Local public officials working for little more than a stipend at times find themselves wondering why they bother. Debate is cast aside in exchange for name-calling.

Scoring points becomes more important than making a point.

Does it matter? You bet it does.

This nation’s form of government — from its city halls and courthouses to the Capitol — requires civil discourse, not the shouting of a mob. It requires fact-based decision-making, not the rhetoric of division.

And the worst aspects of social media and the internet are dragging us — quickly — in the wrong direction. — J.R.