The comments section: Ego explosion??

I am a comment reader. As interested as I am in the new articles posted online, I am often more interested in the comments people leave. And not for good reasons.

Why is this so? Because often they are audacious and down right nasty. They wreak of desperation to be heard, but more so to be powerful, and often controversial. They push personal agendas and viciously badmouth those who disagree. Is this what our society has been reduced to?

I always wonder if these people would actually say the things they write to the face of the person they are writing about? I would like my answer to be a resounding NO, but that is becoming the case less and less. I feel the comments section is a good place to get a pulse on today's society since it is a society existing more and more in the virtual realm.

I think the comments bring to light a few factors:

1. The Power of Anonymity: When no one has to know who I am I can say anything I want and not have to answer for it. The old adage "If you can't say something nice don't say anything at all" gets flung out the window because no one has to know I'm the one that said it!

2. You Are what You Write?: When directly confronted with comments they've written I wonder if people would own up to them, or if they would push them aside and say something along the lines of "Well, that's not really me. I would never say something like that." Are we to assume a person's online presence is different than they are in real life? And if so does that mean we now live in a society of split personalities?

3. Freedom of Speech argument: I will be the first to defend someone's freedom of speech, but I will not tolerate sometime taking their freedom of speech to mean "I can say whatever I want to whoever I want and no one can touch me." This is NOT what the founding fathers intended the First Amendment right to be. When it spiraled so far out of control I am not sure.

4. Who's business is it? Really?: Would you bust into the middle of someone's private conversation to inject your opinion? Would you stand up and stop a lecturer in the middle of his class to disagree? How about getting up on stage and stopping a concert just so you can push your personal agenda from the microphone? And furthermore, if you were going to bust in would you say something so blatantly off topic so as to make the rest of the party stare, mouths agape, unsure of where in left field you just pulled your comment from?

5. I'm important!: Have we come, in today's society, to constantly need to feel important? I often wish I could ask people why they feel the need to smear others, make nasty comments, and pass judgment on people they don't even know.

Why do people now feel the need to constantly be heard? Does the ability to post your comment and know that the entire internet can see it give you a sense of power? A sense of accomplishment? Do people actually believe the things they write, and if they are willing to write them should we, as a society, be worried they will eventually start voicing them? Are we becoming meaner to each other?

I don't have the answers. I just pose the questions.