My personal productivity kryptonite involves surfing the internet, usually starting innocuously enough with Google news...which I deem acceptable under the guise of staying infomed. World news...check. National news...check. Survey finding that 1/3 of Americans believe in UFOs...check. Generally bouncing off from there to whatever random headline happens to catch my easily-distracted eye, regardless of how little relevance it may have to my existence. Google is not the only trigger; I am just as often carried away by some train wreck of a link one of my social networking peeps has subjected me to. And so went a random evening last week.
I'm online attending to some business...actually being productive mind you...when I pop onto Facebook and see a link to an article about housing foreclosures; specifically, about people squatting in their homes having not paid their mortgage in several years. I must digress for a minute and tell you that from childhood I have had an inexplicible fascination with certain information: political, economic, and/or business related. Gas rationing, middle-east peace talks, stagflation, ousted politicians, OPEC wars, finding the Falkland Islands on a map....I was glued to it all. And still am. Thanks Dad...I think. Anyway, having veered off topic only to illustrate why the post sucked me in, I clicked the link and began reading.
I won't delve into my opinion as that would belong on a different blog, but I have fairly moderate and conflicted feelings on the matter. Evidently strong enough views, however, or sufficient enough boredom, to be inspired to enter my two (more like .22) cents. Yes, I know better. The "comments" section is a place rife with socially inept, angry gnome-like sorts itching for a safely-behind-the-computer-screen-battle. Usually to be avoided at all costs via a hasty back-arrow retreat once an article has been read. Sadly, none of this wisdom stopped the words from continuing across my screen, nor prevented the send button from being clicked. And so it began.
Of course I expected opposing views, alternative facts, etc...that's the idea of a comments section after all. What I didn't expect was the simian literacy rate and/or mind-numbing leaps of logic that ensued. I could have had a more well-reasoned and productive debate with my toaster. Seriously it doesn't use txtspk msspel evory otther werd or forget the importance of punctuation when typing a series of words known as a sentence particularly a lengthy one or especially where the expressed statement changes I like soup. It doesn't make random personal assumptions about my age ("stupid kid "), gender ("your wife and kids..."), sexual orientation ("fag"), or political views ("commie corpration lover") Yes, I copied that last quote verbatim.
I have learned my lesson. The comment has been deleted, and all associated responses have consequently been relegated back to the spelling/grammar/logic-impaired netherworld from which they sprung. I will write on the chalkboard 100 times: "I must avoid comments on internet articles. I must avoid comments on internet articles. I must avoid comments...". In the meantime, I'm off to more productive pursuits. The microwave is beeping. And my toaster wants to chat.
