Every time I see that little red number in my inbox, my first thought is: Did I mess up? My brain jumps to the worst-case scenario—maybe I said something controversial, and now everyone’s correcting me and downvoting my stupid comments. Even though, most of the time, the messages are actually helpful and fun, that number still triggers some sort of insecurity and anxiety. The bigger it gets, the louder my worries grow.
Logically, I know I don’t screw up that often, and most feedback is neutral or even positive. But deep down, my insecure monkey brain panics at the thought of being wrong—or worse, publicly called out. Even when I’m right, the number still makes my stress levels spike up. What if people disagree with me? What if they don’t like what I wrote?
And yes, I see the irony in posting this. Writing about it is basically asking for it and feeding the very anxiety I’m trying to ignore. Maybe it’s my version of exposure therapy.
Not necessarily anxiety, but yeah usually my first thought is, “Oh shit, what ignorant thing did I say now?”
I would have to post something that people interact with… I’m not that kind of person. I usually get none to one reply to stuff I post, I think the highest mine has ever gone is three. I also couldn’t keep up with it.
It’s mostly about time and place. What the post actually contains matters far less. Post in a big community or at a time when most people are awake, and you’re guaranteed to get lots of upvotes and comments. Post in a niche community, and you’ll be lucky to get a handful of upvotes, and maybe even a single comment.
I just press
mark all as readSo you don’t read them at all?
Well, sometimes, if they’re mostly negative I don’t bother reading them.
The community
Must
Grow
I haven’t gotten to a point where I couldn’t read all the messages I got yet
Yes, especially since I’m an asshole and there’s no option to disable inbox replies for comments on Lemmy (so I can’t just hit and run). Nearly gives me an anxiety attack every time.
You like to play it dangerous, it seems. Keep things spicy? In this thread I’ve bumped into more than a few people who do the same and ignore all notifications too. To them, it’s just a huge meaningless number that grows all the time. These people are essentially the drive-by shooter of the online world.
The point is to be controversial. While we still can be.
lol naaaah :)
👁️🗨️👀👁️
I’ve never even looked, I use Boost.
Yeah, I sometimes get that feeling “uh oh, what did I do?”
We may be a minority. Turns out, lots of people don’t get that feeling.
Not worried exactly - but aware that I probably said something factually incorrect and now dozens of helpful people are lined up to set me straight.
Or dozemz to rip you a new one for defending a non (f)oss way of computong.
How dare you.
(and yet the same will use something like Plex, lol)
Lemmy needs the “disable inbox replies” feature for comments imo. Although lately I see mostly polite disagreement.
That’s really interesting, because a surprising number of people here ignore the number or just mark all as read every month. It’s like treating comment replies as spam. I guess that’s what you have to do if you’re a drive-by shooter and never wish to face any consequences, but I’m not that kind of a psychopath.
BTW that could be a great post for [email protected]. If you end up posting it there, I’m really curious to see why people disagree with that… or more importantly, how many actually agree. Based on the small sample here, I think the latter group is not a tiny minority.
Of course if someone never wants to read comments they can just do that, but I think that’s a bit of a different thing because it seems that would indicate disinterest in back and forth engagement here overall instead of just a specific kind.
I wonder though why you feel that you should “face consequences” for expressing an opinion you expect will be unpopular, while at the same time expressing anxiety about the possibility of it happening (when you have conviction you’re right even), because that’s honestly confusing to me. Why would it necessarily mean you ‘screwed up’ just because what you have to say triggered hostility? Wouldn’t it be better just to be able to worry about it less, and express yourself more freely without chilling effects? People might say this could be abused, but I guess the way I see it is that letting others have the last word is what it amounts to externally, and what you choose to read or feel yourself is private and something you have broad license to make your own choices about.
For me the most common situation on Reddit where I use this feature is if I have something to say in disagreement with someone who is already talking aggressively about something. Where I have good reason to think they’re likely to leave a nasty response, and that there likely won’t be anything productive left to say, I’ll probably have to hold myself back from responding further anyway, so there’s no point feeling anxious in the meantime worrying about getting the inbox notification.
I also disable vote scores, though fortunately that’s something Lemmy does have now afaik.
I politely disagree.
Why the fuck would you post this? It’s wrong and you’re wrong and you’re a bad person and you should feel bad! Fuck! Fucking fuckety fuck!
“Oh here we go. Why do I keep posting honest takes on things instead of getting a feel for the general vibe and blindly agreeing with the majority?”
I feel this comment acutely.
If I blindly agreed with everyone, I probably would be dead, having killed myself from the lack of moral obligation and common decency this species seems to be deficient in. I’m only sticking around because I feel like this is the end of the Anthropocene and I want to witness it. Is that honest enough for ya?
Some times you just roll the dice and see what happens. Make a risky comment of the day, pay the price, get back up again and do the same thing next week. Basically, just spread your unpopular opinions in places that weren’t designated for it.
I’ve burned my fingers a few times, but also found some unexpected supporters. Write a teasing remark about a particular group, and you’ll find that everyone hates you and you get downvoted to oblivion. Say the same thing in a different place, and all you get is upvotes and comments that go even further than you did. It’s a dangerous game for those who like to live dangerously.
Blindly agree with the majority if you want to play it safe. Not a very spicy way to live your life, but I can see the appeal of it.
Try mentioning that you’re a Christian that despises the GOP.
All they hear is Christian and the comments begin.
Who cares what people on lemmy think about you or your opinions? I’d rather hear your honest opinion I disagree with than hear you agree with everybody else
Agreed. I prefer this place to be a spot where you can disagree. I learn a lot from disagreements.
That’s the only way to battle the echo chamber
It’s true that the opinions and comments don’t matter. At the end of the day, they’re just meaningless internet points and text that will be lost when the disk of my instance eventually gets formatted or when bit rot gradually eats them away.
However, that’s not how my social monkey brain feels about it. Some primitive part of me that ignores all logic and reason clings to the notion of social acceptance and shivers at the mere thought of rejection. Can’t disable that sort of thinking. Seems to be a hard-coded part of a function or something.
