Online Arguments

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A few days ago, I witnessed an online argument. The arguing parties ended blocking each other. It is such a sad thing when two intelligent adults who have a large number of followers online, reduce themselves to two children throwing sand at each other.

I love reading local news and the opinions of others regarding the issues I was reading and this is a scenario which I see all too often. A person is attacked instead of the logic of his arguments for lack of a solid and logical argument or simply because he passionately disagrees with the other person. Where is tolerance and respect for the opinions of others then? 

So here are my thoughts on online arguments:

a) Walk away. As opposed to real life situations, walking away from an online argument is easier. No one would be the wiser if you stopped making a comment for an hour or two and come back pretending you were in a meeting or someone was at the phone. Go out, take a deep breath and think.

b) No matter how passionate you are about your beliefs, you must also draw the line. Be careful with what you say online. It can be shared and reshared so many times. You may potentially hurt the other person's reputation but since it's a two edged sword, you may also potentially hurt yours. Credibility like respect does not happen over night. 

c) On the other hand, I also believe that there are persons online who seemingly are born to incite hate and anger in others. Realize that in online debates as in real life sometimes it's better go walk away especially when nothing is making sense anymore and the argument is deviating from the original post.

Being the opinionated person that I am, I am only too glad to have all the online arguments that I have in, in private messages and certainly didn't end in blocking each other. Yay!