My 'Best' Interactions Most of the Time are Online...

[EscapeVelocity2020]

I was listening to a YouTuber and had the idea for this poll.  The person speaking was bombarded daily by social media so had built up a filter to mostly dismiss online 'feedback'.  Not all of us 'offline folk' have fully digested how quickly the world has changed, but also not fundamentally changed.  Additionally, us Americans also have a President that uses social media and makes this 'search for information / entertainment' online vs. IRL more relevant.

My vote is that online interactions are fun, may or may not be informative.  However, I am slipping down the list to online / social media being only for entertainment.  Even a vocal majority of compelling online anecdotes should not swing my perceptions away from what I see and think and read about from varied sources off-line, but I still run across some really great stuff online that I otherwise would have never seen.  Still very conflicted, even with some outrageous, unfiltered misinformation coming directly from Trump's Twitter.

[lost_in_the_endless_aisle]

One striking thing is it's now easier than ever to get a diverse set of viewpoints, and yet, actual patterns of interactions in many places tend towards like-minded people sorting into more homogeneous groups on a variety of characteristics (I can think of one forum in particular that is interested in early retirement and frugality). The more interesting parts of this forum (but maybe not most helpful in a practical sense) are the off-topic areas since that is where the greatest diversity in thought exists, whereas the core finance related posts are more predictable (e.g. a thread asking if someone should buy a new car: I wonder what this community will suggest?).

One of my favorite online things I used to do was go on Omegle (random-person chat) and sip a glass or three of wine while chatting with random people from all over the world. Of course 95% of people on Omegle are horny perverts or outright trolls but usually within a couple of minutes you could get someone not deranged and have fascinating conversations.

Overall there is lots of great information and viewpoints online as long as you know where to look and are willing to filter out the garbage (e.g. everything on twitter) and not let it ruin your day.

[GuitarStv]

Social media of any kind is not only useless as an information source, it's not very fun.  Internet forums can be OK sources of information, but it's always important to check things that people are saying.

[Gondolin]

There is a big difference in informational content between social media and "the internet".

Social media is garbage and everything you see on it should be viewed with suspicion.
The internet has so much factual information that it boggles the mind.

[maizefolk]

I'd also say there is a difference between ideas and facts. When it comes to factual statements, I wouldn't take give too much weight to something stated as fact by a random website, or a random person on social media, or a random forum poster. OTOH, being exposed to new ideas about subjects that are interesting to me is a great thing I can get from the internet.

The difference between a fact and an idea, is that an idea is generally something you can evaluate for yourself (does this make logical sense? is it internally consistent? does it explain things I know about the world better than other ideas? or suggest interesting new things I could try in my own life and observe the outcomes?), while a fact is generally either true or false, but it's much harder to tell which it is without external validation by an independent source and, in the absence of knowledge of whether they are true or false much less useful than ideas. (If I say "the average north korean is two inches shorter than the average south korean" you might say "hmm that seems plausible, but it's also quite possible he made it up" and if you cared a lot you might google it to look for other sources, but more likely you'll just go about your day and it won't do much for you one way or another.)

[ender]

Social media of any kind is not only useless as an information source, it's not very fun.  Internet forums can be OK sources of information, but it's always important to check things that people are saying.

But I thought everyone online was an expert!

[Bicycle_B]

The majority of my "online interactions" are on this forum.  I find interesting and often informative, which is why I chose option 1 in the poll.

That is quite different from my "best" interactions being online.  I would say that my best interactions are offline, because they include people I know more closely, see in person more often, and have more multifaceted relationships with.  My deep friends and family (decades of closeness) I see primarily offline.

[Milkshake]

If you could go back 50 years in the past and explain what life is like now in one sentence, I imagine it would go something like:

"I possess in my pocket a device capable of accessing nearly all of mankind's knowledge, and I use it for arguing with strangers and looking at pictures of cats."

[shelivesthedream]

The options in your poll do not match the stated question in the OP: "Would you say that your best 'everyday' interactions are online or IRL (in real life)?"

To answer the options in your poll, the internet is hugely informative for me - I use it daily to instantly look up info about what might be eating my pak choi, how to clean my hob, what would be a good recipe to use up lots of eggs... I also read about what's going on in the world, and to read about non-everyday things like history or science. It is also very fun: cat pictures, the MMM forum, online advice columns, downloading films and music...

However, to answer your original stated question, my best everyday interactions are in real life. You can't beat a real person.

[EscapeVelocity2020]

Yes SLTD, the poll was poorly written, but still generating interesting responses.  I had the idea of what I wanted to poll and tried to keep it simple, but still managed to screw up the execution!  Since there are so many steps and blanks to fill in, it can be a little tricky to get it all consistent before seeing the final submitted 'product', and then it's too late to fix.  But anyways, good comments.  I might get around to trying again with a little more preparation next time ... the subject line is the challenge - it has to be short, interesting, and informative enough to get the job done, which was a little too tricky for me in this case apparently...