Spectrums

I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but the internet overall is not exactly a place full of nuances and balanced opinions. And that’s a byproduct of the way we interact online. Interactions such as Likes or Favs are binary options. You can either like something or not. There’s no in between. Polls usually have a very limited number of options to pick from because it’s easy to parse data that way. Also, conversations move fast and if you take your time to think about something and write a carefully considered comment, chances are people have already moved on to the next topic.

As a result of that, the public online discourse is mostly made up of short takes that leave no room for those very important details. If you want to understand someone’s opinion on a topic you need time. Opinions are usually not binary and they can span across a wide spectrum. You need to invest time reading or listening to what they think about and then probably ask follow up questions. That’s not something that usually happens online. Hell, that’s not something that happens in person very often these days either.

I learned that often I both agree and disagree with people on any given topic. And discussing where our opinions differ is where the real opportunities to grow as a person reside.