Trolls have serious psychological issues

Recently posted on FB:

Quote :

In this month's issue of Personality and Individual Differences, a study was published that confirms what we all suspected: internet trolls are horrible people.
Let's start by getting our definitions straight. An internet troll is someone who comes into a discussion and posts comments designed to upset or disrupt the conversation. Often, it seems like there is no real purpose behind their comments except to upset everyone else involved. Trolls will lie, exaggerate, and offend to get a response.

What kind of person would do this?

Canadian researchers decided to find out. They conducted two internet studies with over 1,200 people. They gave personality tests to each subject along with a survey about their internet commenting behavior. They were looking for evidence that linked trolling with the Dark Tetrad of personality: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadistic personality

More information here:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-online-secrets/201409/internet-trolls-are-narcissists-psychopaths-and-sadists

That's why I posted the warm fuzzie story. The reality is that people who are trolls do not recognize themselves as such but rather see the rest of the world as out of sync with how they see things.

I have a friend of many years who has had extreme mental problems for the last thirty years.  Sometimes when he has had proper medication, his behavior approximates normal and he was able to maintain employment.

He is now in a facility from which he cannot leave without special release.  It was necessary because his behavior was not acceptable in society.

Sometimes, though, he has a long period of time when he seems like anyone else and believes he is like anyone else, resenting the need for being in a medical facility.  He is quite persuasive and in the past has talked so well even with medical experts that he has been released, only to relapse again.

He sees the world as insane and believes he is well.  Therefore the medications prescribed are a conspiracy against him. 

Because I knew him in his productive youth, it is heartbreaking.  I wonder what research goes into diseases of the mind compared to other illnesses - or funding.  Seems if we could get a better handle on a broken brain, it would solve many societal issues.

I think it is because there is still a stigma connected to what is a real illness and not some abberation which we ought to be able to control on our own.

My Uncle Feagin's wife was bipolar. When her symptoms first became severe, she was hospitalized and given shock treatment. Eventually, things changed enough that she was given a prescription drug that relieved the symptoms, but she still felt guilty for having to take them, and would periodically stop. She believed that if she were stronger-willed, she would be able to keep her emotions and behavior under control without them.

There are similar attitudes toward those with PTSD. During the Vietnam War, Audie Murphy went public with his problems, in an attempt to get the military to recognize that mental and emotional wounds needed to be covered and treated by the VA. It looks like that problem hasn't been solved yet either.

My poor brother needed help from early childhood on.  I feel so bad about him.

That's the way you are, Alice. You feel for people, especially those you are close to. I'm sure you did everything you could to help him.

The problem with stuff like this posted on Facebook is that trolls are posting and circulating it.

Social networking sites allow anonymity, which leads to people speaking their minds in a way they would not do face to face. They would have the same thoughts, but would not express them.

Shelagh wrote:

The problem with stuff like this posted on Facebook is that trolls are posting and circulating it.

Social networking sites allow anonymity, which leads to people speaking their minds in a way they would not do face to face. They would have the same thoughts, but would not express them.

And that relative anonymity allows them to get away with it.

Psychology Today is a reputable magazine. If the article is being circulated by those trolls, it's a way of bragging about it.

As DK said, these people see the rest of the world as being "out of sync."

alj wrote:

As DK said, these people see the rest of the world as being "out of sync."

Yes, but they see everyone else as trolls. I spent some time on the Guardian newspaper's Scotland blog prior to last Thursday's referendum. The paper was established in Manchester and its main readership is English readers. Although the blog was about Scotland and the referendum, it was primarily for the said English readers to follow the daily events and post comments.

The most vociferous group posting on the blog were Scottish yes voters. They fed off one another and took over that section of the newspaper as if it belonged to them. They were the "in" group. Whenever anyone put up a strong argument that weakened their argument, they referred to the posters as trolls. The yes voters were rude, offensive, dogmatic, arrogant, opinionated and critical of anyone who disagreed with them. In effect, they were the trolls, and yet that accusation was aimed at those who put up reasoned arguments and helpful information.

Exactly the same behaviour was displayed on the Facebook pages of the yes and no camps.

I seem to have struck that raw nerve again. It wasn't intentional. My own nerves are still raw from recent issues here.

I have no dog in this fight, personally.

You did strike a nerve, Ann. The yes voters are blaming the media for bias. If they were complaining in Scotland, that would be okay, but they are blaming the BBC and national newspapers. Since the rest of the UK did not have a vote, only the Scottish media had any real influence. The Scots love to blame the English for everything.

For anyone who has been following the referendum, the result was not based on one side winning and the other side losing. Without a shared currency, Scotland could not afford independence. This one fact alone made it impossible for voters with pensions, mortgages and businesses the luxury of even contemplating independence. It was a non-starter before David Cameron agreed to the referendum.

Jim Sillars is a twitter troll:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/09/21/scottish-independence-jim-sillars_n_5857178.html

For what is now a relatively small land mass, you have lots of separate bits that need to get along.  I believe you've more in common than differences such that one entity seems more efficient for everyone.  Am I wrong?

dkchristi wrote:

For what is now a relatively small land mass, you have lots of separate bits that need to get along.  I believe you've more in common than differences such that one entity seems more efficient for everyone.  Am I wrong?

Hope not!

dkchristi wrote:

For what is now a relatively small land mass, you have lots of separate bits that need to get along.  I believe you've more in common than differences such that one entity seems more efficient for everyone.  Am I wrong?

It may seem that way from afar. The population of the UK grew to 64.1 million in mid-2013. This means that the UK’s population has increased by around 5 million since 2001, and by more than 10 million since 1964.

The estimated populations of the four constituent countries of the UK in mid-2013 are 53.9 million in England, 5.3 million in Scotland, 3.1 million in Wales and 1.8 million in Northern Ireland.

England has a population ten times that of Scotland, seventeen times that of Wales and thirty times that of Northern Ireland.

Under the terms of the union of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Bank of England is the lender of last resort for the pound sterling that is currently used by all four countries.

The value of the pound is dependent on the UK economy. If Scotland gained independence, it would leave the union. As a separate country, Scotland would not be allowed to share the pound. In other words, the Bank of England would not be the lender of last resort for Scotland.

Even without revenue from North Sea oil, England would do very well, and flourish, without Scotland. Even with all the revenue from North Sea oil, without sharing the pound, Scotland would not be able to live as it does now.

Scotland would have to set up a central bank. For every Scottish pound printed, there would have to be the equivalent amount in reserves, so that the pound in a Scotsman's pocket would be worth a pound. The burden of the billions of pounds in reserves would mean that Scotland could not afford the social policies it can afford as part of the union. You can't spend your money twice. If the money is kept in reserves, it cannot be spent to prop up socialist policies such as free university education that is currently available to students in Scotland.

What Alice said.

Wise move, Little Brother.

Trolls do insidious damage.  All it take is a one sentence, one star review and no one will ever read  your book.  If you ask your friends to post for you, it is self aggrandizing.  But, the one star, one line, mindless review is there like the evil blot it was meant to be.  It cannot be removed even if your story is the end all be all of little stories.  You may as well delete the story from your list. 
Love, Betty

Alice,

Little brothers have good survival instincts. 

Betty,

I agree wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, engaging trolls is a fool's errand. In the real world, police deal with their deeds (more or less) when they throw rocks at police in peaceful protests, destroy private property for fun, deface public and private spaces with their "tags" that some fools call art, beat innocents for fun and profit, loot stores, and engage in every other type of antisocial, criminal behavior. In the virtual world these same people can hide behind anonymous screen names and avatars to wreak havoc on civilized conversations, engage in personal attacks and libel innocent people for fun and profit.

Spirited conversation, disagreements and arguments among people honest enough to use their real names are one thing. These too can be unpleasant, but free speech is messy and I would  not have it any other way. Getting a one star book review from jackass@irrelevant.com is annoying and can hurt sales--especially if there is no comment to back up the review that can lend credence to the review or expose the reviewer. This is especially the case on sites where anyone can rate anything without having purchased or read the book--particularly so when there are few reviews for the book because of low sales or because it is a recent release. The same is true of professor rating sites where a student unhappy to have received an F just because they had a 50% average for the semester can post all sorts of nonsense and then lie about having earned an A in the course to boot. This is no different from sites where anyone can rate lawyers, physicians and other professionals without even knowing them or having used their services.

When I'm irked by an unfair, unsubstantiated review by someone hiding behind the anonymity of an untraceable screen name, I look up and read the thousands of reviews for any of my favorite authors--most luminaries in their fields by any standard--and see the same unkind, ungenerous, unwarranted reviews by dozens and dozens of readers, some expressing honest opinions and some just slinging mud. I smile and move on.

The only critic that really matters for me, to be perfectly frank, is me. All the praise in the world for something I've written that I know needs a lot more work does not make me feel better. And a one star review for something I've written that I love and of which I am proud does not make me think any less of the work.  Editors and publishers have taken issue with what I've written and published. When they were right, I took their advice, When they were not, I wrote "stet" on the proofs and went with what I wanted. Once, and only once, when I could not convince a publisher that my vision was right, I asked for and received a release and pursued my vision elsewhere.

Trolls can annoy but not hurt me because I know who I am and trust in my talent and vision (warts and all). I could not do what I do otherwise--none of us could.

Easier to say when you are not the one being "trolled."

I've been the victim of trolls too, Ann, though thankfully very infrequently. I've received a couple of very unfair reviews without comment and at least one out and out libelous review from an anonymous student on a professor rating site. Yes they bother me. Frankly, I've received some comments here over the years (though very, very rare) that angered me, but at least they came from someone who used their real name. At some point, if I am angered enough times, I just don't read what the poster writes any more, whether they are a troll or simply someone who does not like opposing points of view and takes them personally.

LC once said that I was trolling ... here! You've got to laugh, haven't you?

I guess that's the difference between rational people who disagree and irrational people who must make everything a label, a personal attack, a demeaning turn of the word or something purposefully hurtful or shocking.

If rational people did not disagree, we would be walking off cliffs like so many lemmings.  We can disagree on ideas without attacking the person who holds those ideas. 

When I presented at national conferences often, some workshop reviews were a laugh a minute.  "The presenter has a run in her stockings so I could not concentrate."  Give me a break!  "Too much information was presented for a one-day workshop." Isn't that why people go to workshops?  To get a big bank for their buck?  "The presenter didn't look old enough to give a person confidence in their data."  My colleague was 35 and looked not a day of 19 - and?  The data was the data. 

We used to get ratings that were tens down the line and the comment would be, "Waste of my time."  Duh?  Or the opposite, all one's and the comment, "best workshop so far."

National Public Review complimented Ghost Orchid for being well-written without grammatical or typographical errors.  What?  They must have thought they were reading a self-published book and wanted to explain why they bothered to review it.  I had a legitimate publisher.  They would not make such a comment about a New York Publisher book - correct grammar etc. is assumed.  The remark was demeaning though on the surface complimentary.

Disruptive trolls are big about labeling people and stirring up emotional buttons when they take a defensive stance.  It's a trap they practice well.

I have no problem with bad reviews or opposing points of view.  I have no problem with constructive criticisms of my writing, though that seems to be the impression with some people here.

I also have the right to set limits and am used to having them respected.

I've known Shelagh for a while now and we've been through some stuff together.  I understand her decision to not ban anyone.

That being the case, situations sometimes arise that call for a response.  In those instances, I tend to respond.

I have been with most of  this group for as long and have friends here.  We have lost some of them and still miss them.  They bind us together.  I have no desire to leave.  

I have a voice and I use it. 

I believe that in an open forum, much can be gained and learned by expressing opposing views.  That works as long as participants stick to the views without resorting to personal attacks.

Ignoring might work if everyone ignored, but there are a few who not only don't ignore, they encourage.

Ignoring works probably 90% of the time, but when it doesn't, steps may need to be taken.

Just sayin