{"id":399,"date":"2012-10-25T15:38:37","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T19:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.annawahrman.com\/wp\/?p=399"},"modified":"2012-10-25T15:38:37","modified_gmt":"2012-10-25T19:38:37","slug":"just-say-no-to-reading-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annawahrman.com\/index.php\/2012\/10\/just-say-no-to-reading-comments\/","title":{"rendered":"Just say no to reading comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few choice quotes from Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams about why you should never read the comments<\/a> on your own pieces — or ever, really. Needless to say, I agree.<\/p>\n

I used to believe that as an online writer, I had an obligation to read the comments. I thought that it was important from a fact-checking perspective, that it somehow would help me grow as a writer. What I\u2019ve learned is that if there\u2019s something wrong or important or even, sometimes, good about a story, someone will let you know.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I want it to be better. But it\u2019s just not.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[Not reading comments has] calmed the negative chatter in my head and it\u2019s made my experience of the Internet a whole lot healthier. I highly recommend it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Talk about (as I often do) the differences between print and online<\/a>! This is one of the bigger ones, in terms of psychic drain if nothing else. I don’t know how it got this bad, but it did. Perhaps it’s a reflection of the general (lack of) discourse in the public and political arenas nowadays. Perhaps the technology has made it permissible. Perhaps I’m just sensitive. In any case, my self-protective instincts, like Williams’s, just make me want to disengage completely.<\/p>\n

I feel about Internet comments roughly the same way I’ve started to feel about television news, with its know-nothing talking heads and\u00a0lowest-common-denominator coverage made for an attention span\u2013less public that’s apparently eager to share their opinions (about which I care very little).\u00a0They’re both icky and make me feel bad, angry and frustrated.<\/p>\n

Two recent and related stories about others who are taking the opposite stance from the “just walk away” model and are actively trying to make the Internet better:<\/p>\n