Are all our reactions online really necessary: thumb-ups and emojis, comments on posts or on the comments of others? Or could we just keep our emotions and opinions to ourselves, at least most of the time?
The existence of like-buttons and comment sections encourage online readers to share their immediate emotional reactions or to quickly lash out verbally. But, as we know, the world around us is utterly complicated, and every event has several aspects to it. So in reality, processing one's emotions more profoundly or structuring one's view on a particular topic should take much more time.
It is especially dangerous to react continuously in a certain way online because it exposes the reacting person to a certain kind of news feed, which captures him or her even more tightly to the chosen viewpoint. Instead, in a face-to-face conversation, the differing vievpoints could enrich the minds of each participant.
Unfortunately, we cannot even say that the situation was better before the era of the Internet. In several countries, violent periods - as WW II - were preceded by a time when certain groups of people used the public space to vent their anger and frustration on other, more vulnerable groups. Vestigia terrent.
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