Tips & Quips—QUIP: Scroll, Don’t Troll
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I first wrote that phrase—“Scroll, don’t troll.”– in my book 50 and F*ck it! because I wanted to invite readers to think about things differently. I also really like alliteration and rhyme, especially when you’re trying to convey something useful that you hope becomes memorable. In this case, the rhyme becomes an easy “tip” for how to engage online, especially on social media.
Now, I know I'm probably preaching to the choir on this, because if you’re here, reading my work, you’re probably interested in some measure of self-understanding or self-improvement. So, while you’re not necessarily the target audience, I'd say you’re “target-adjacent” since you’re probably online.
As I write this, it feels like we are on the heels of some of the worst trolling we’ve seen on social media. Gone are the days of the pandemic when we felt more camaraderie, more connection (even though we were separated more, physically), and more desire to be kind, thoughtful, and live from a place of compassion and understanding. Now, as a society, it seems like we have doubled-down on the “me vs. them” or “us vs. them” mentality, from the convenience of our hidden profiles and over-used armchairs. As such, the phrase seems more important than ever.
If you can have one superpower online that makes your life better, it’s this. Learn how to scroll past things. Learn how to disengage from others who simply want validation. Because, though it may seem counterintuitive, engaging with the troll lowers you into the troll category, and it serves no purpose. In other words, no troll has changed their mind or behavior because someone replied to them.
From my perspective as a former therapist, I see the online trolls as having some variation of Borderline Personality Disorder: All they want is engagement. They don’t care if it’s positive engagement (reinforcing) or negative engagement (challenging). They simply want engagement. They want to know that something they have said or done has caused a reaction. It probably makes them feel valid and alive.
So, the best thing to do is to ignore and scroll on by. If they yell into the void or pass off their judgment into a vacuum, they will eventually be starved of the air/space they need to survive. They don’t care about you. They don’t care about what happens to your mind or your mental health. They only care about themselves and reaping responses. This is also why they escalate. When they don’t get a response for the less cruel things anymore, they have to keep amping up their comments in order to get the dopamine hit they crave. Like addicts, they are in constant search of the high their trolling gives them. (I’d even venture to suggest that decades from now, social trolling may be a class or type of addiction, but I digress.)
So, this week’s Tip is simply this: Scroll, don’t troll.
Swipe, move on, curate your feeds (as much as the platforms will allow) and build an online environment that is fun, supportive, and positive. (Bonus tip: On your own accounts, turn off comments or tagging, if that makes it easier for you, too.) The sooner you get that muscle flexed and exercised, the better your online life will be.
Now for some FUN STUFF! If you support this tip and want to passively suggest it to those around you, I’ve designed some fun and playful tees you can wear that say just that. Buy them here (kids) or here (adults)!
