By Kim Hilsenbeck
In some recent — I’ll call them dialogues — with readers, I found it surprising at how disrespectful people can be, especially via email and on Facebook. And in particular when they don’t get the answer they wanted.
Then again, I don’t guess I was really all that surprised. I thought about comments I’ve seen people write on our Facebook page and our website. Sometimes, those, too, are over-the-top, mean-spirited and occasionally rude.
What is it about electronic communication that gives us license to treat each other so poorly?
Let me be clear that reader feedback is always welcomed and always appreciated. Knowing what readers want or don’t, like or don’t, and what they think is important or not, is valuable input. Other times, we need to hear we screwed up. In those cases, it’s mea culpas all around.
As a community newspaper, we rely on readers to give us kudos or remind us to watch our Ps&Qs.
But there are times when a commenter is just being, frankly, ugly. He or she is kvetching just to hear him or herself (and it’s often a self-righteous self at that).
They have no shame in their vitriol, they don’t temper their contempt. They spew and spit like a llama, never stopping to think how they come across to the person receiving the brunt of the rant.
Yet I would almost guarantee — always a tricky proposition — that 99 percent of those people would not say those same comments to my face. Or at least, they would smile when telling me to go to a very hot place. And I don’t mean Houston.
This phenomenon of sitting behind a screen and feeling empowered to say whatever unsubstantiated drivel comes to mind is universal these days. I see it on websites and comment postings everywhere.
Truth? Irrelevant. Tact? There could not be any less. The comments are instead fraught with contempt, ill-manners and a general lack of concern for treating fellow humans like doo-doo.
As a society, it is our responsible to offer guidelines for this type of interaction — kind of the rules of engagement for electronic engagement. More importantly, we should lead by example. Don’t write back a response to a comment right away. Back away from the screen. Take a deep breath. Pet the dog. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want reprinted, posted on a website or said to your mother.
In summary, be kind and stay above the fray. Be the better person.
In full disclosure, I am sure my responses back to at least one person recently were not as congenial as they should have been, but when folks keep pushing your buttons — sometimes it’s just too tempting to give them back a little taste of their own medicine.
But it’s exactly that kind of attitude that caused me to write this column in the first place. Shame on me. I’ll do better next time.
Meantime, drop me a line to let us know how we’re doing. And please, start with kindness and let’s go from there.
kim@haysfreepress.com
