Online or offline. News keeps reporting about loneliness and disconnection, but in my experience it’s just that it’s harder to interact with people in a civil way because they are so hostile, angry, and arrogantly convinced their viewpoints and experiences are the only legitimate ones.
Not to mention the lack of civility towards servers and other service workers. I can’t recall if I was just indifferent 10 years ago, but on a almost daily basis it blows my mind how openly rude many people are to servers and such, which seemed like a much more rare thing when I was younger.
Online, yes. In the world, no, if you can find anyone without their face glued to a screen.
There always were (and always will be) some shitty people in the world, but mostly people are ok in person. If someone sucks, you can just walk away.
Online is different, especially for people who don’t go outside. Too many people tend to hyperbolize everything and then block everyone they disagree with. It exacerbates the echo chamber and increases the fear/hate/isolation.
I’ve seen mostly OK people change over the past decade and become shitty. But they’d also argue it was me who became shitty, no doubt. In real life. And I know they are social media addicts, because they were always on their phone, or they were always referencing Twitter/Tiktok, etc.
Some became anti-vaxx, others just became entiteld assholes, and many just started blaming other people and past events on their current unhappiness. And if you dare to disagree, well, you are the problem too.