[throw18374]

This is tangential to the article, but James being “a frequent commenter on his blog and a huge help to other readers” was my first sign that he was not mentally well. Immediately knew things would not go well for him in this story.

People often say this as a joke, but I think it’s 100% accurate: Internet comment sections have a strong self-selection bias for the mentally unwell.

I’ll include Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, HN to some extent, etc.

Not exact numbers, but the math goes something like 100% of comments are written by 10% of readers. Of those that do bother to comment, the less utilized and less psychology stable and healthy they are, the greater their commenting volume is.

Healthy happy people simply do not spend much of their time that way.

(I’m including myself in that btw.)

The world treats these comment sections as if they represent a perfect cross-section of the general population, and the result is all the insane cultural rambling and nonsense you hear and read about in media and blogs, all the way up to Fox News and NYT. They think these insane ramblings are what represent the people and what the people want.

Then the population adjusts to some extent to match those insane ramblings, because they think that’s how other people must feel.

It’s a global feedback loop of political and cultural madness and hysteria.

[chubot]

This came up a year ago under "Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18881827

https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most...

I think there is a grain of truth to that, but it depends heavily on what you read. If you read a lot about politics and pop culture, probably. Likewise, as other people have said, the "personal development" audience likely has a lot of unstable people.

It's more accurate to say "outliers" than "insane", and some outliers are good!

[throw18376]

i think you are completely right about this. for one thing, mania/hypomania can lead people to compulsively post, in the same way that it can make people hyper-talkative IRL. sometimes people taking stimulant drugs or having adverse reactions to other medications can end up in a similar state. to me this explains a lot of the strange behavior on the internet, in aggregate, although i make an effort not to diagnose individual people on the basis of some internet comments.

[gist]

> Healthy happy people simply do not spend much of their time that way.

But what if making comments makes you happy?

While I don't disagree with the premises of what you are saying I think you are not considering that for some people saying something makes them feel good and they are perfectly mentally sane.

I could also say that 'healthy happy people do not spend their time socializing with others at parties' but we know people do that because 'it makes them happy'.

[paganel]

For what it's worth "mentally sane" and "healthy happy people" can be a little boring in real life, that's why lots of people like myself have decided to spend time arguing with people from the other side of the world on websites like this one or on reddit just because the subjects being argued about are interesting and there's no way you could find a person in your real life that could be interested in said subjects.

[gist]

Very true. Also words vs. conversation tends to be very efficient although often lacking cues that come with voice or visually. No wasted time and much less boredom from feeling trapped.

[imgabe]

"Healthy, happy" in this context, happy is not a momentary emotion as a response to external stimulus. This is happy in the sense of generally content and well-adjusted. One doesn't get made that way by something else, one makes oneself that way by adjusting the way they view the world. A better word would be equanimity. You can be "happy" in that sense even while going through distressing events.

[mandelbrotwurst]

That's an interesting theory, would you mind explaining why you think that's the case?

I wouldn't be surprised if there is at least a correlation - e.g. maybe those who spend a lot of time commenting online do so because they are trying to compensate for a lack of meaningful offline interactions, relationships, etc.

That said, is it so hard to imagine that someone might have both? i.e. even if there's a correlation, it seems like a bit of a stretch to suggest that a prolific internet commenter is necessarily mentally unwell. It seems very plausible to me that someone might both have a robust real life social life while simultaneously engaging in online interactions as well, no?

I'd also posit that this might depend on the forum - e.g. someone actively engaging in learning or sharing their expertise on e.g. nutrition or car repair forum may be a bit different than the median commenter on news articles linked from The Drudge Report.

[celticninja]

I think the 80/20 rule is fairly well established, 20% of the users are responsible for 80% of the content.