Every single day I encounter people being rude and nasty to
each other. Typically that’s online because without a human standing in front
of us there is no feelings attached for some people. Someone is always offended
or wants to force a point of view on someone else. It is constant and it really
never stops. People disagree and then the insults begin and more often than
not, the insults are cruel and unnecessary. I can’t even figure out why it
continues at that point because then it just turns into a battle of who can
insult the other more.
You can
actually be nice as pie online and someone somewhere who doesn’t agree with you
will tear you apart for fun. This concerns me a lot because it speaks volumes
about human nature and how far people will take things if the empathy of a
person standing in front them doesn’t exist. In my opinion this is actually
dangerous to kids growing up in this world who use technology to do most of their
communication. There are words but no face to see or feelings to read. We can
take a sentence and read it however we want to, then we can translate feeling
however we want to because there is no tone of voice attached. Even kids
without autism are learning how to interact with each other as they grow up and
keeping a good eye on technology is very important to keep the thought of
humans and feelings alive.
I
offended someone last night with my opinion, not an uncommon opinion by the way
but not a welcome one to this person and many more after that. Actually I
offended more than one person yesterday with the subject of Christianity and
modesty. I did not set out in any way to offend on either subject but it happened
so easily it was like I couldn’t avoid it unless I remained silent. That is not
how people are supposed to be interacting with each other on a daily basis. It’s
not healthy period. If I was to have said
the same exact thing I typed face to face, I know the reaction would have been
different. They would have heard my tone, been looking at a human being, and
known I wasn’t out to offend. Maybe we would have picked each other’s brains a
little more because when you are in someone’s presence you tend to care more
and feel more. At least that’s idea.
This
problem is affecting everyone because the internet connects us all. Even if we
aren’t in the middle of a bashing we all come across one no matter what. It’s a
problem for kids learning to relate to others with or without autism but adults
are affected as well. When we read a comment online we can’t see social cues so
in a way we are all getting a dose of autism with this kind of interaction.
Difficulty understanding each other and things are taken very literally,
leading to frustration. The difference is I don’t think autism leads to cruelty
when the frustration hits. Here are some ironic differences in our world between
someone affected by autism and someone who is not. Not all of this applies to
everyone but I know everyone has seen it in action, especially online where it
has taken over.
Some
with autism need technology to communicate while others chose it. An autistic
mind will fight to understand others while some people fight refusing to try to
understand. Autism wants to know what those social cues are while others have
the ability to read them and ignore it. Autism typically wants to make sense of
things while others chose not to. People tend to think autism lacks empathy,
totally incorrect by the way, while others chose to not use it. Autism is
trying to live in a world without offending or being offended while others are setting
out to offend and get offended.
My
point is people take advantage of the abilities they have and how lucky they
are to have them. Don’t be one of those people if you can help it. If you’re
looking at a computer screen always try to remember there is a human being on
the other end. A computer is a gateway to each other and somewhere in cyber
space the elements we need to relate to each other get lost. I think we could
use a lesson from autism and fight to hang on to things that matter and help us
attempt to understand each other instead of tossing it out into cyber space to
get lost. Ignoring the fact we have the ability in the first place.
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