1346 Blog Psych

We live in an age where instantaneous reactions are polluting the solution of our common good. I’m talking about blogging. And more importantly the way blog psychology leads to electronic mob psychology. Witness the recent furor created by one insignificant idiot who proclaimed “Koran burning” day.
The guy is an off-kilter pastor in an obscure town with a congregation of less than 50 and yet he was suddenly king of the blogosphere¾and the world. Because the blogs picked up on his zany posturings, the news media felt they had to follow in lock-step, and pretty soon there were riots in Pakistan as fundamentalist Muslims felt threatened by American Islamo-phobia.
As a semi-blogger myself, I hope I’m not contributing to handing the villagers pitchforks.
It’s the instantaneous nature of things on the internet that helps cause the problem. No matter the subject, there are instantly legions of folks shooting off their opinionated mouths about it.
They are often uninformed opinions, and worse, those opinions become the information upon which other uniformed and unthought-out opinions are based. Blog psychology is mob psychology. We need to remember those old rules our elders taught us. Count to ten. Take a deep breath.
Come on children. It’s not always right to act on your first reaction. That’s why we have a brain, and with it, one would hope, civility and thoughtfulness. Neither of which is common in mob rule.
Just because the bloggers and the media solicit your instant reaction, and just because “comments” sections allow you to spout off, it doesn’t mean you have to say something some reflection would cause you to regret later.
Count to ten. Take a deep breath.
Put down that burning torch.
Remember, when it comes to mob rule, it takes a village to make an idiot.
America, ya gotta love it.