Utter destruction of all social normativeness in modern society

[Spooniest]

I'll start this off with a quote that I think is pretty relevant.

"If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole."

It's easy to spout off bullshit on the internet. The relative anonymity helps, as does the fact that you can't get your ass kicked through your phone or computer. It's easier to snap at someone and to have a hot take reaction to something that just happened, especially before all of the facts are released.

I also think that the internet and instant communication is a great thing for maintaining friendships with people. I remember years ago, my grandma would clip out newspaper articles and send them to friends and relatives, with a little note saying how she thought the person might be interested in said article. You can do the same thing in a manner of seconds today. Copy link, pop it into a text and send it. Boom, done. Technology has helped us to speed up what would have taken days to share. Sure, there's a nice feeling to get a piece of mail that isn't a bill, but the thought is still there.

I do think that the internet and technology has worked to create a bunch of barriers and subcultures of basement dwellers and socially awkward people. People who either never had social skills or decided to completely abandon social skills and essentially live online. They can't get jobs because they don't have the social skills or care to handle an interview. They just sit around and live online for their entire day. They were either poorly socialized or apathetic to it.

So, yeah, for all of the good that the internet does to connect us, it's also up to the individual to act like a human being.

While I can see what you're not-so-subtly getting at, there is another type of person you are ignoring in your discourse, which I happen to be, and which is easy for someone of your view to overlook.

There are those of us who are simply depressed about the whole situation to the point where our heads quite literally feel like 10,000 ton weights balanced on our shoulders. You can, as you say, spout all the bullshit you want over the internet about it at someone who suffers this particular affliction; exactly 0 of it will help.

Because our communication process has been sped up so, we now no longer place the value on patience and understanding that we once did. We prefer short messages that are easy to understand and emotionally process. I feel like every single time someone says "How are you doing?" a little voice inside me says "They don't really want to know, just say that you're ok."

It must be so wonderful to be a person who doesn't have these kinds of social and mental issues going on in their head. Really a dream, I bet. So much so that perhaps the euphoria of it clouds one to any form of sympathy for someone who is in the midst of it. Despair and depression really can latch on to someone early in their life and slowly choke them out.