I like it, but it doesn’t feel liberating. It feels like you need to be very careful, because if you express yourself in a way that could be taken the wrong way, it will be! But I like getting the insight into how many different people think. Edit: typo

Online discussions lack tone of voice, intonation, etc. and any form of non-verbal communication which makes it really hard to judge the intention of the other person.

And of course pure anonymity makes it possible to be an asshole without having to suffer the consequences.

Consider the absolute freedom of 4chan folks. They can say literally anything, and land in good discussions whenever they choose, if they're willing to tolerate the noise. Can't really get that in real life except among really close friends.

Basically there are not many places you can take a premise at face value and just throw thoughts out without worrying about consequence to social standing etc.

They also lack the ability to signal listening.

That is partially what I like about 4chan. Nobody even really tries to be nice in the first place. Which, personally, is something I almost crave, due to constantly having to tiptoe around.

On the internet you can be whoever you want to be, including a total jerkwad. It's much harder to do in person, as the punishment is quite high unless you enjoy getting your ass kicked by a stranger.

Like someone else previously said, we need to invent a way to kick somebody's ass over the internet. Then we'll enjoy real time worldwide pleasant anonymity and thoughtful discussion.

um OT ...and i thought this post was about the story on goodnews, some days ago, somthing with 'slacker'-checkouts in dutch-supermarkets, for the elderly, having time for a 'natter' tcha ?! ^^