Mental health of internet users

I think soap operas fall under the same purview as Harlequin Presents. Fantasy. Note how often they glorify the "abnormal" Besides who watches soap operas? Not the people who actually think a lot about moral or spiritual topics.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Cut out 'religious fixations' and you have described a few of the Mods at various stages in their lives. So you can hardly expect the punters to be much different, can you? Unless some of the Mods have had religious fixations previously of course, in which case, all apply.

But anyway, maybe being sort of anonymous, people are more open here. You might know more strange folk that you'd care to know about in real life.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I was taken into a mental institution once, because of what I had written on the internet, but they declared me completely healthy and can look forward to getting sued.
Free speach is not allowed in Sweden.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

You crazy man!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

I think I'm an internet addict.

I think the internet/forums give the user the ability to 'expose' themselves without the difficult real-world ties. This tends to allow it to be exposed moreso than in real life.

 

Interesting about the drugs. I've almost never used any drugs at all - although the one time was great, and I'd gladly do it again, except for the vague sensation that it was "wrong, somehow". Anyway, got kids now, and "Druggie Daddie" is just creepy as hell.

 

I think you underestimate soap operas and crime shows, as well as the people who watch them.

FYI, I watch a soap opera!

 

I dont think about a persons sanity. Some peole on the internet are obviously very mentally ill and does not bother me. In real life i get nervous around mentally ill pepole though. But that also depends on many factors. I suppose in the internet it is easier to mask your mental illness and truth be told these people dont get any attention in real life so i dont mind them so much. Some have interesting things to say and i dont judge them.

 

Now that i think about it. The other night i was sitting next to someone, he loked like a warewolf (shame but that is what i thought, mostly because his hair was sticking and a few other things but i shouldnt be critical) and i said let me talk to this guy. So i said a few words to him and he was overjoyed. And then he wouldnt shut up. It was like a barrage of words hit me and his breath was very bad too. I was very nice to him and retended i was interested in his words about guitar playing and he even added sound effects. He would say 'some guitar oplayers just do this...bwoo bwoo bwoo bwoo' while makeing a guitar motion of strumming with his right hand while holding the neck in his left. At the moment i knew no one talks to this guy and certainly dont take him seriously. So how could i end the conversation and not hurt his feelings?

At the same time, peole approach me all the time. I have magnetism.

 

And I watch crime shows. But do I religiously watch each and every episode and consider it my vicarious moral or spiritual life? Uh no. I used to watch Bold and Beautiful long long ago but it was only for Clarke.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

I think you'd have to be crazy to post on the internet.

:bugeye:

 

Neither do I. (You seem to be missing my point deliberately!! :bugeye

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

It isn't just Sciforums. You see the same thing on pretty much every internet forum, especially if they are open to all, allow use of anonymous personas and aren't heavily moderated.

In 'real' face-to-face life, we usually interact with people who are kind of preselected in various ways. They work for the same employer, we have selected them as our friends, they are members of special interest groups or whatever it is. On the internet, we encounter a more random assortment of people, including the kind of individuals that we probably wouldn't choose to associate with in 'real life'.

Some people are well-informed and know a lot about the subjects that they are discussing. Other people know little or nothing about the subject, but might nevertheless hold the strongest opinions. Threads tend to be dominated by the loudest and most aggressive voices, making them kind of a lowest-common-denominator deal.

More subtly, the anonymity of online communication creates a whole different interpersonal dynamic. I've noticed that face-to-face, people are kind of on their good behavior. They are careful not to become too confrontational with strangers since they run the risk of having their noses broken. Appearing too extreme or too controversial can damage people's reputations, making them more circumspect when they are using their real names, especially around people whose opinion matters in their lives.

But when many individuals are posting anonymously from behind the protection of a computer screen, the gloves come off. People take pleasure in 'venting' the kind of sometimes aggressive and sometimes bizarre sentiments that they might not be comfortable expressing in everyday life.

And it's probably inevitable that people who are having particular difficulty interacting normally with other people face-to-face, might end up finding a disproportionate amount of their social life on what they perceive as safer venues online. That's going to include people suffering from psychiatric illness.

 

Peole are more self conscious in real life.

 

you had one beer in your life???

 

Never again! Whew.

 

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

I don't share that perception. Rather, I think that people's issues end up being easier to notice online. In-person interactions are circumscribed by all sorts of customs and rituals that can obscure what's really going on with people - but online people tend to be less restrained, and inherently end up expressing their various neuroses.

I've learned to both dial up my expectations of how much disorder is lurking under the surface in 'real life', and dial back my expectation of how literally nuts various internet wackjobs are. The former has been driven mostly by various revelations about various people whom I long thought to be healthy and happy had actually been seriously troubled for a long time. And seeing a few overtly-normal people go completely nuts over a few months once coming to college, things like that.

Those are all pretty commonplace features of the general population - I'd wager that the percentage of people who fall into at least one of those categories at some point in their lives would account for a commanding majority of the population. If you aren't regularly encountering such in real life, I'd propose that there's some kind of bias in your sample or method of observation. To take the depression example: most people have no idea when somebody is depressed. The whole thing about depression is the isolation - you feel that nobody can understand you, or would want to if they could, and so you get through your days hiding your actual feelings by acting normal, smiling at people... and then going home and drinking yourself to sleep, contemplating suicide, etc. Unless somebody is an extrovert, the only way that casual acquaintances will ever learn that he's depressed is if he attempts suicide or somesuch.

Also, what's with the scare quotes on recreational drugs? Is abuse not sufficiently bad on its own, that we have to suggest that all drugs are inherently bad and dangerous no matter how they're used?

That's true of the general population, and so surely applies here as well.

 

He probably mean while the subject is directly under the influence of a drug and posting on the forum. I agree drugs account for the low quality (to put it mildly) of discussion groups. I often joke, but in a serious way, that discussing things is sometimes like the boredom i feel talking to an overbearing drunk in a tacky bar but a drunk, even on the internet, is difficult to mask the impairment.

 

Thanks, I saw that Ricki Lake show too. I am bad at monitoring peoples body language, not subconsciously but i never bought inot it.