But actually the big thing that helped me was sitting down and assessing why I wanted to correct this stuff. It never gave me any satisfaction, it never lead to anything I liked, and a good deal of it was likely venting trauma from being talked down to all my life. Once I put it together it just kind of stopped happening.

Eventually you learn that its not worth it.

90% of the time, people aren't arguing in good faith. You can only hear another variant of the cosmological argument so many times before you realize that arguing is pointless

i usually engage briefly so that others can see there is pushback, because i know most people are lurkers and it is important to me that there are both sides represented. but i learned when they respond in bad faith i can just disengage and either block or move on. i listen to my body's reactions and try to leave when i feel myself getting agitated. it works for me :)

I don't argue with people who are wrong. I point out where they are wrong, and why, for the sake of passers-by who may need more complete information, because most people are lurkers, and most people tend to believe what's typed on the internet without much further question.

You should stop treating arguments like a game. The point isn't to win - it's to find the truth. Every argument should start from the acknowledgement that you might be wrong, and if so, you wish to not be wrong for a minute longer than necessary. I can't think of a single thing that better demonstrates intellectual honesty than someone actually changing their view when faced with a convincing argument.

However, not all arguments are worth continuing. When your opponent doesn't even engage with what you're saying, or when you're not even open to the possibility that they might have a point, there's no reason to keep going - there's no end to it. So many online "arguments" are just people performing for an audience with no real regard for whether their points are landing or not. They're after applause, not a change of mind.

you don't have a problem with stopping the argument. you have a problem with the desire to always be right. you're compensating for a lack of recognition in your skills and intelligence in real life.

accept that you will never get that recognition and you will stop needing to be right.

I know this, because I was this.

next time you see something that someone said is wrong, just high five them and move on.

I usually reply once. I don't argue. I said what I said, bye.

Whenever I see a comment on social media that I think is wrong, I feel the need to correct it.

https://xkcd.com/386/

That's not an argument.

It's okay with me if people are wrong. I disagree with everyone on at least one thing, I find, if I talk to them for more than a few minutes.

You could try this--offer your correction, and then never look at the thread again. Disengage. You've done all you can do, let it go. Eventually, you WILL get to that point, so get there quickly and on your terms.

It's okay if people are wrong, and a lot of people are.

If you really can't control yourself, then you might benefit from therapy.

I downvote and hide the thread. I used to argue with flerfs on Twitter years ago. Didn't take long before I noticed they believe what they want. Trying to educate is a waste of my limited time.

oh i usually start typing something and realize it's

There are two rules to happiness.

Rule1: Never say everything you know.

I'm not exactly great at it myself... but my dad used to tell me a story from his job.

There was a guy that made some claims, another desperately trying to correct him and tell him he's wrong. To no avail, afterwards, he turned to another person that had a doctorate in the very topic they were arguing about. And said "why didn't you say anything!? You know he is wrong!"

To which the doctor replied "yeah, but it's not my problem that he's an idiot"

Can't argue with people on social media if you're not on social media.

taps_forehead.jpg

I only post on Lemmy and I don't do a lot of arguing because it leads to beatdowns. Either I get beatdowns from idiots or I get a well-deserved beatdown because I'm the idiot. Get enough beatdowns and you too will tire of it - maybe you are now! Maybe this is a cry for help!

Quite literally, you need to learn self-control, how to pick your fights, manage your emotions.

You really wanna let a bunch of random asshats on the internet live rent free in your head, dictate the emotional course of your day, your evening, your week?

This is where the 'touch grass' meme partially comes from.

Sometimes, you need to let go, walk away, pet a kitty, hug a dog, admire a tree... or more ideally, work on some hobby that you find fun and fulfilling, and is at least potentially 'useful' in some very broad kind of practical way.

Also, a lot of people are beyond wrong/misinformed; they're actively committed to denying that they're wrong, even after its been shown that they are wrong.

You can just block people who are unwilling to admit fault or learn.

Its doesn't need to be your responsibility to personally deal with every dumb idiot asshole on the internet.

A habit isn’t often something you can quit cold turkey. Before replying, start asking yourself “is this worth my time?” More and more, the answer will become NO. Just move on.

For those occasions when you can’t resist replying, keep it lighthearted, friendly, and casual. If the response is angry, overly defensive, or otherwise unpleasant, force yourself to walk away. There can be no “winner” in a toxic situation. Even if the facts are on your side, you don’t need the stress.

step 1. understand that people are people

step 2. understand that other people have their own problems are often don't have the time/energy to focus on the topic at hand

step 3. understand that you're not going to help other people by hammering your argument into their head. instead the thing that helps more is to make a better quality of life for everyone, then they will have the time to actually listen to you and find a meaningful result.

Bro dont argue on public social media especially fb. They're idiots. I only stay there for marketplace and like 2 friends.

I wish i could voice my thoughts on fb but I'd get instantly labeled as a terrorist by the Drump regime for daring to go against dear leader and oligarchy.

On public social media they likely think I'm a right wing Drump voter 😄

Acknowledge your own limitations. The reason you think in the way that you do is that you were taught to think that way. You have been exposed to thousands of ideas that form the foundation of your belief system, and you can't convey those efficiently over a few social media posts. You can't teach everything to everyone.

Whenever I see a comment on social media that I think is wrong, I feel the need to correct it.

That's not necessarily arguing, unless you're continuing to engage repeatedly. This is really where you stop, if you even choose to engage at all. Have your say, make it count, move along.

If you genuinely care about a subject/topic/opinion, that first reply counts for 99% of your reach/impact. The second time you reply, it counts for 0.99%, the third time you reply, it's like 0.099% ROI and so on.

After that first one, the juice is not worth the squeeze and the young folks are saying these days.

If your social media outlets of favor are anything like Lemmy, most of the people you see with edgy content or making edgy comments, they aren't serious people. They aren't here for serious discussion or open minds, even if it is a serious topic.

It's easy to say, I realize, but you have to learn to let it go. Literally nobody cares. Probably even the person you're "arguing" with doesn't care, other than it gives them sexual pleasure to get attention from a rando online.

Also, don't fall into the fallacy that the one who speaks last wins. If the person you're debating is just serving up leftovers from the overly salty stale dinner with no substance that they prepared last night, it's okay to leave the table. You literally are winning, no matter what, by not eating that same slop that you already know is bad.

Assume they don't want to and can't be corrected, because there's a 99% chance that's exactly the case.

Correct them once and move on, last say doesn't mean shit when they're wrong.

and in case you are wrong, acknowledgement goes a long way. be the example, but don't expect it from anyone else.

Honestly, if you mean Facebook then I salute you for having the patience. If I had to correct the moronic comments I see whenever I use that platform I'd explode. It genuinely made me loose faith in democracy as a system. I honestly don't think half of these people should have a vote.

That's why I switched from Reddit. There were so many people to argue with, I never stopped! Around here, I still need to correct people occasionally, but it's not constant and usually much more chill.

Write your comment, but ask yourself right before you hit send: “I’m gonna die one day. Is this what I want to spend time on? Is this what I want to be remembered for?” Eventually you’ll ask yourself that before you finish writing and later still you’ll ask yourself that when you think about writing the comment.

The problem with the internet is that however many people to convince to join your side – or even just correct – there will always be more. It is beyound your capability to correct them all, and you will burn out. So why even start. The rule I follow is to only discuss politics when it's face to face, IRL – like in a pub. These kinds of discussions are better IRL anyway because people feel a duty to keep discussions civil so there's much less chance of it descending into a nasty flame war

Disagree with the point not the person. And remember the person you're arguing with is one person while there are a hundred on the sidelines thinking that acting like assholes precludes making good points.

I've been there, my friend. I can't say I never disagree with anyone — I certainly can't say that. But I rarely argue. It is a learnable skill.

These arguments can go on for days, even weeks, and if I don’t win the argument, I get overly fixated on it, wondering where I went wrong and so on.

Gotta have a strategy for deciding on a stopping point. A good overall goal for a social media argument is to get people reading to consider things they might not have thought about or been aware of before, so it's probably not going to help if all you have left to say is finding new ways to rephrase the points you've already made, or explaining in detail basic uncontroversial things that your opponent is playing dumb about. It isn't bad to let them have the last word if there is nothing that you really need to clarify or address.

Unfortunately when you get an inbox notification and read some inflammatory things, making that call to walk away is hard because emotionally you get worked up about it. This is why I think "disable inbox replies" is a good feature Reddit has and threadiverse software should implement it, a lot of the time you know in advance that you've already said your piece and whatever someone writes in response to you, it's very likely going to be a mistake to respond again, and it helps a lot to just remove the temptation.

Discuss don't try and "win," what are you winning I'm not turning up with a prize.

Don't bother. Most people don't care about facts, they just want their existing beliefs to be reinforced. You will not sway them, only waste time. They may even be intentionally posting incorrect information to troll or mislead. Don't give them the time.

For me, all it took was learning to just let myself decide to do nothing when I think someone is wrong, even if I feel that view or speech or whatever might be harmful to them or others in some moralistic sense, and especially if I find myself already frustrated before I've engaged. Everything isn't up to everyone to sort out all the time, and it's been hugely freeing to just let it go and focus on literally anything else in my life. The internet has a way of making us over-value the thoughts and opinions of strangers sometimes (seemingly particularly those we have nothing in common with and nothing to gain from arguing with).

I find it helps immensely to not be on social media to begin with.

It all depends on your motivation, but what I prefer to do is think about the reader. Imagine there's some post and someone makes a comment and I know that the comment is wrong or misleading. So I might decide to reply. And my comment is there to help readers not be deceived by the previous comment.

Therefore, I don't need to deal with any sub comments and I don't need to keep following that thread. The most important thing was to have a rebuttal to the primary claim that was made and I already wrote that so my work is done. I find this to be an okay use of time, at least some of the time, because a lot of times the commenter that I'm replying to is someone that I just can't reach. They might have some immovable position on a political issue or they could be religious or they could be argumentative or trolling. And I could go back and forth with them several times, but really nobody else would read our thread, so it would be a waste of time.

Of course that's only one approach and it really depends on the types of comments and issues that you're concerned with. But it's one way to reduce stress and save you time.

Delete the app

I don't. I use social media as an outlet for my contrarianism so I don't do it at home

Self discipline.

Once I learned the skill of purposely removing myself from certain online things...world of Warcraft and social media arguing were two big ones...I got a lot of my life back.

It really just comes down to self discipline and self control, which are necessary to learn if you want to actually mature and grow up.

Edit: you could also consider it the art of learning boundaries.

Same as you would stop arguing offline, recognise the moment the argument isn’t going anywhere helpful and leave/defuse the conversation. Life’s too short to be arguing with people who you will probably never meet or see.

Sometimes it’s the reason people choose just to lurk or choose not to comment on posts at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpQlyUjp3vM

Most comments on social media are reactions on a topic. When you argue with an idiot (like on YouTube), you're wasting your time since the person on the other end does not want to talk, only vent about his life.

wondering where I went wrong

Maybe you're not wrong, it's that other guy trolling whether he knows it or not.

https://youtu.be/LhQGzeiYS_Q

welcome to lemmy! this is a slower kind of forum so you may not find yourself doing it as much here :)

i'd say you just need to slow down and breathe for a bit, then ask yourself whether this affects you. i know it's a cliche and it's hard when you're "in it", but remembering to just breathe a bit helps a lot with a lot of things. it helps you put things in perspective.

There's an XKCD for that as always: https://xkcd.com/386/

If the person does not seem like they would be receptive to seeing another view point, I probably just ignore (and, if transphobic, racist, sexist, etc., typically block the person). Every once in a while I might make a comment and judge the reaction first.

If the person seems like they actually want to consider their and other positions, I might make a comment with some back and forth.

I guess the exception to that is when I see posts like 'Japan is like X' or 'All Japanese people do Y' and it's just plain wrong. In those cases, I will always post at least once.

I also work a fulltime job, have a small farm, and have a house to maintain so I'm not typically swimming in free time for arguments anyway.

Fast forward into the future and imagine what you, your opponent, and the world at large will be like after the argument (win or lose).

If everything remains the same, it means the argument was pointless and it’s better to save your energy for something that matters.

The last time someone “won” an argument on the internet was in 1998.

weed

may not be in my recent history but sure I will engage with folks but if its not going anywhere I will eventually say something like we have a fundamental disagreement. Whats funny is sometimes the person will keep on exchanging so I will say some stuff but repeat that, you know, we just disagree. I will only state it a few times before stopping to respond and sometimes the person keeps on responding to my last one like two or three times. Anyway if a discussion is not swaying either one of us and we are not getting anything out of it then that is what I do. I don't think I had one go over a week long before hitting that point but maybe.

Instead of arguing to win, I argue to learn about the other side's opinion. I trigger people for them to say more for my AI training. (/j) If the argument is something I've seen a thousand times then I don't bother.

Also, if someone starts using personal insults ("fuck you", "kill yourself"), that means they ran out of arguments and lost.

Turn off notifications. Even if they reply, you'll never see it. One comment, if you have to, and then you 'walk away.'

Check your ego and be willing to walk away from an argument that isn't going anywhere.

Leaving social media helps... But if someone is wrong on Lemmy that's a whole new problem I can't help with.

I would say don't sweat it too much and if you eat downvotes sometimes that's fine.

Like this.

I've realized for myself, the social media platform itself can make a difference. Lemmy with the clear direct replies makes it much too easy to get into a direct back and forth, whereas on Mastodon it's way harder

But also, finding things to do with my time offline has helped immensely in breaking some of those nasty feedback loops that digital stuff is designed to sink people into

Leave all meta products; they are built in a way that arguing is promoted. Only reply once to a post; never twice, tell you opinion and stop.

Depends on the scenario. Most often, I just mute the thread and try delete notification of that vary arguement because I know I am extremely reactive. If that person to me is really scummy, I tend to just blocked them and try move on the day. Life is too short to be hyperfocus on an arguement I doubt anybody would care in the long-term.

I just deleted everything

Why would I want to stop?

I just accept that I tried educating that person and if they refuse to learn that's fine and I move on

It's already been mentioned that some people are putting on a show for an audience. There's more to the social media metagame too. Many are simply trolls. Social media has gone a lot deeper than basic forum posting days.

Some commenters are setting up their own victory or confirmation bias. They post something incendiary which is an invitation for polar opposite replies so they can dump their prepared responses, which always sounds better than anyone who replies with a comment written off the cuff.

Sometimes they're reposting a common variant of an (un)popular remark that more people than not will upvote/downvote or reply in agreeance/disagreeance with, thus proving a point to themselves (an audiences).

Of course there's the ones who are flooding the zone with shit so they can shift the Overton Window.

I don't know about you guys but the more I think about it the more social media seems like an actual asylum. There's not an exchange of ideas like back in the older days of the internet. It's more like the mentally unstable unhoused people who roam around cities arguing with themselves. Social media puts them all in a single room and let's chaos ensue. All while the tech industry sells ads and subscriptions to view the pandemonium.

Check out Crucial Conversations!

If you do, I think you’d benefit from Starting With Heart and Mastering Your Stories. If you do choose to reply, you could Create Safety by creating a common purpose.

You can also learn to notice your thoughts and impulses so that you can choose more freely.

Mindfulness can help. Defusion exercises can help. Acceptance exercises can help.

Let me know if you have questions!

Embrace the argument, people believe and say some absurd shit and it's very funny.

What are you hoping to gain from arguing? I have a Facebook "friend" that I have argued with on many occasions. I will never convince him of anything. In fact, there's a good chance I've pushed him even further into his psychosis entrenching him even further in his echo chamber of bullshit. My goal isn't to convince him. My goal is to have the counter-point to his asinine crazy readily available. Also, since he owns a local business and fully flaunts his idiocy, others have taken notice and it's affected his business.

Whenever I see a comment on social media that I think is wrong, I feel the need to correct it.

No, you don't.

Easy. I don't respect people who are wrong on the Internet. I just imagine them as drooling idiots with only two braincells to their name. What could I even accomplish if I changed their mind? Then they'd be wrong somehow but on my side.

An adage that i found helps: never argue with an idiot, because the best possible outcome is that you will win an argument against an idiot

To put it a slightly different way- think about what you’re doing and why. Will it achieve anything? Will anybody find it useful? Will it enrich your life? Or are you just chasing a cheap, hollow, short-lived dopamine hit?

Add to that the fact that nowadays there’s a reasonable chance that you’re interacting with a chatgpt prompt designed to farm engagement, and it should become relatively easy to have those “…what am i doing?” moments

I've learned if a person is properly egregious, muting them is the best option. I'm doing that for a lot of apologia of bad takes on here.

Realize that they don't see you as a person, and no amount of logic or reason will change their opinion. You aren't having a spirited debate about the fundamentals or right and wrong. This isn't you face to face with someone, where you may have a chance at influencing them.

Spend your mental energies on people in real life. The internet is for memes and jokes.

I used to get in social media fights a lot. Still do occasionally. I'm not sure what advice to give. I'm not sure exactly how I stopped caring so much about strangers opinions. I guess what you need to do is just recognize that you can't change some people's opinions and avoid commenting when it will lead to drama. Or just say your piece and accept that people may or may not leave negative replies, you don't have to reply back every time. I know it's all easier said than done, you just need to not care as much what people think

For many people it’s the notification that is the biggest problem. That sound immediately sends the mind back to the anticipated argument and the physiological responses to conflict are already kicking in before you’ve even tilted the screen to read the notification.

If that describes you, here’s my advice:

• Type your comment, put your best rebuttal forward, click send. That’s your mic drop moment. Now never come back to it.
• Turn off notifications. If the thread has a link for turning them off, click that. If it doesn’t, turn off notifications for the entire app.
• That entire comment thread is now off limits, and it’s easier to police yourself now that the mind controlling powers of the notification have been dealt with.

While you’re at it, turn off notifications for a few more apps. Pretty much everyone needs to turn off a few more than they have and that shit disrupts your best thinking throughout the day. And if you still can’t exercise the discipline to say your piece and move on? That means you’re running out of excuses for telling yourself it isn’t an addiction, and you really should delete the account and the app.

I see a lot of "just don't" comments in here which doesn't seem very helpful.

What are you afraid will happen if you don't correct the wrong comment? Let's start there.

I just stop when it's no longer fun and I lose interest. I find arguing in the comments to sometimes be a decent way to search up details about the topic at hand, to gather ammo.