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The above was from personal experience and observation from having been a part of many online communities -- pre-dating reddit -- in all ways including: here-an
by endothrowho333 7y ago
The above was from personal experience and observation from having been a part of many online communities -- pre-dating reddit -- in all ways including: here-and-there member, first-hand maintainer and manager, and antisocial member causing a ruckus.
Armchair psychology? No, I've made many friends and acquaintances, both online and in real life. The ones that bubble around posting online heavily, have developed antisocial tendencies that were reinforced through social exclusion. A self-fulfilling prophecy. I know this, because I know those people well and because I was there at one point in my life as well.
Neither is it condescension. Perhaps I may have been in-exact and may have offended some that do post online very regularly, but there must be a distinction between what they consider "regularly" and what I consider "heavily." Heavily, in my observation, is someone that puts aside a significant amount of time, usually involuntarily, to do nothing but interact with online communities for the sole purpose of social interaction. No value judgements were made either, but those characteristics are common among the aforementioned group.
I won't address your hypothesis, because I'm not here to argue.
- disintegore 7y agoIf I understand correctly, your anecdotal evidence is what makes this not "armchair psychology"?
- krn 7y agoWhat's wrong with simply sharing personal observations based on the decades of related personal experience? Anyone who has some training in science has learned to always be looking for patterns.
- rakasaurus 7y agoTheres nothing wrong with it. Calling someone an armchair psychologist is an anti social behavior.
- TLLtchvL8KZ 7y agoWell for one thing it would make me able to go around claiming that generally black people are criminals and rapists and that it continues to be so because the young here in my city are being sucked in to the "monkey see, monkey do" phenomenon because they have low emotional intelligence and distrust authority, blah blah. That is based on the past decade of my life and the observations I've made and the experiences I've had. I of course don't go around claiming such because it's nonsense and stupid.
- disintegore 7y agoNothing. I simply don't value this kind of loaded and facile analysis very much.
- SkyBelow 7y ago>Armchair psychology? No, I've made many friends and acquaintances, both online and in real life. The ones that bubble around posting online heavily, have developed antisocial tendencies that were reinforced through social exclusion. A self-fulfilling prophecy. I know this, because I know those people well and because I was there at one point in my life as well. This would still qualify as anecdotal data, and thus armchair psychology. Now, it works perfectly valid as a hypothesis and can be rigorously tested and determined if data reject or supports (fails to reject) it. But without peer reviewed research, that last step hasn't happened. It also sounds good. Makes sense. Fits our notion of common sense of how humans works. The problem is that psychology is filled with examples of where these kinds of intuitions are wrong.
- endothrowho333 7y agoYou got me there. My connotation of armchair psychology is more informal and doesn't match the more rigorous, APA definition. I'll make one note: the psychological profile I wrote of, is based on first-hand experience, as well as pieces of mental notes recovered from internet-addiction and FBI profiling papers.
- gameswithgo 7y agothat is armchair psychology.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]