Parent Chat: The Real Dangers Of Virtual Dialogue

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Parent chat: the real dangers of virtual dialogue. A shocking deliberate attack in Volgograd on a young father, Roman Grebenyuk (which led to his death), committed by Arsen, the brother of the young woman with whom Roman had a different position in the school's parent chat (the attacker himself did not correspond in the chat and did not even know to those who were attacked!), makes us seriously talk about the dangerous side of digitalization of communication and social life online. In this case, about the problems of group chats of parents in kindergartens and schools (general education, sports, music, etc.), chats of owners in apartment buildings (HOA), cottage and summer cottages, large garage complexes, etc. Thanks to them, recently:

• - There are more and more cases of fights, beatings and violence, when in chats everything starts with a delicate discussion of some common problems, then they turn to individuals, insults and threats, and already in real life there are fights and murders;
• - For the usual reasons for depression and stress, there are complaints from the series: “I was persecuted in the parental chat of kindergarten”; “I was publicly called or scared in the chat, right in the presence of everyone, but everyone is silent, as if it was necessary!”; “I was so insulted in the chat of the tenants that at least sell the property and move”; “My self-esteem falls and complexes develop due to the fact that I cannot defend my rights and defend my position in the chat of our class”; “Other children tell my child that their parents bully me at home in the kitchen after dialogues in the general chat, which is very unpleasant”; “I am shocked that thanks to the chat a bunch of impudent people seized power in our house (school, classroom), they do what they want, and nothing can be done about it!”

And now psychologists have to work with this new problem.

What is its essence? In human psychology! The fact is that for our brain, any group of people, even virtual and artificially created, in which few have seen someone personally, is already a kind of "tribe": "native habitat", "living space", "environment of self-expression", "Our everything." Simply put, a freshly appeared feeling of some kind of community and belonging automatically includes an unconscious desire to show oneself to everyone in all its glory, to indicate one's capabilities and personal qualities. So that on the one hand, no one will infringe on you. On the other hand, in a successful scenario, you can crush someone under yourself and achieve the position of a local leader. What is pleasantly pleasing to self-esteem, plus the possession of some kind of material and intangible resources. After all, where there are people, there are always resources and someone must control and redistribute them. Of course, without forgetting yourself.

And there are nuances here. Most educated and cultured people realize their potentials and ambitions at work and in the family, that is, in real social spaces, in the outside world. They create a family, build a career, earn money and influence within their profession, organization or industry. Accordingly, they get very tired there. They do not want to live and think only about the events of a kindergarten, school, entrance, house or village. Hence, they do not plan to spend their intellectual and emotional forces in local chats. Plus, other members of the chat rooms are perceived as potentially close to themselves, people of their own kind. And, often, they naively think that all other chat participants also have enough of their other things, plus they will show mutual respect and tact. Alas: sometimes they are very wrong, for which they pay in blood!

Because out of several dozen chat participants, with a high degree of probability, one or two people may not be socially implemented, but at the same time they are very active, toxic and dangerous. Usually these are: wealthy conflict housewives; bored rentiers from life; criminals or near criminals; psychologically unhealthy people wandering in conflict from one job to another; still decent looking alcoholics; migrants who have not rebuilt from a communal communication culture to a digital one; people prone to pressure on others, etc. If they really lack power and social recognition, they are quite sincerely inclined to consider chat as the place where they will finally be appreciated; where they will be able to manage and establish those "their own order" that they would not tolerate in any decent organization and would quickly get rid of them.

Self-realization of such people in the chat (I conventionally define them as chat raiders) usually has five directions:

1. Excessive activity, when a person presents himself as an expert about everything in the world, grabbing at any discussion topics, trying to get the rights of a group moderator and / or access to the collected funds.

2. "Clogging up" the information space, the transformation of the dialogue in the chat into an incessant and pointless stream of consciousness on abstract topics. If the chat was created with the intention that it would be used only once or twice a month for the collective solution of really socially important issues affecting everyone, then chat activists begin to communicate continuously with everyone or simply broadcast their "I" the scheme "what I see, I sing about that." Dialogues are rapidly losing the subject of conversation, leaving in stories about their personal and everyday life, memories and just emotions on the topic “About life!”. The rest of the participants have to endure silently, thereby strengthening the ego of the chat raiders, who have received a long-awaited and, as it seems to them, grateful audience, in front of which they can show off.

3. The desire to make chatting as informal as possible, sliding into greasy jokes, vulgar jokes, profanity and outright foul language. To blur those boundaries of permissible communication, which in the future will be easier to cross. After all, when it comes to disputes, you will have to get personal and publicly insult. To do this, you need to accustom everyone to this in advance.

4. Creation within the general group of parents or residents of their own micro group of like-minded people and even drinking companions. With them in the chat is emphatically emotionally warm communication. Moreover, in a general chat, people begin to communicate with each other on abstract topics, which would be more correct to conduct in personal correspondence. Thus, the rest of the people are simply turned into extras who powerlessly watch how the emerging group of "owners of the chat territory" virtually frolics around.

5. Virtual terror of dissidents. The emerging micro-group enters into conflicts with separate “not submitted” adequate individuals, publicly suppressing the centers of resistance. After all, in order to realize your new sub-community, you must definitely dissociate yourself from someone, push yourself off and virtually kick. And when the binary, black-and-white binary scheme characteristic of human psychology, "we are they, ours are strangers, ours are not ours" is fully formed, punishing someone and hitting is obligatory already in real life: the solidarity of any new government, even a virtual one, is usually fastened with alcohol, blood and money. Plus, the most aggressive chat activists can involve relatives or friends who have nothing to do with the chat, but are ready for anything.

As a matter of fact, it is because of this fifth point that I am writing this article. After all, it is because of him that now those quite worthy people who are communicating in chats with an open mind are beginning to suffer psychologically and physically die, not seeing the risks for themselves, and not knowing the laws associated with human psychology. Meanwhile, it is important to remember:

• - Communication in a group chat is nothing more than communication according to the rules of the "street", and not at all a scientific conference. Therefore, success here accompanies three categories of people: those who grew up on the street have the appropriate conflict skills; those who often go to the “virtual street”, chronically live on it and are always “in the subject”; those who spend most of their time not on discussing the topic of conversation itself, but on building communication with other people, on creating their own "support group", who are aware that discussing something is just a convenient reason to yourself.
• - Communication in a group chat is not hidden, but a public dialogue! When the presence around, though virtual, but nevertheless witnesses and eyewitnesses increases the degree of emotions and does not allow retreating, as it is a shame to set aside virtual territory! It is no accident that the saying: "In peace and death is red!" That is, in the presence of others, people take noticeably greater risks and sacrifices than where they can quietly and imperceptibly leave the game.

Hence, as a psychologist, based on the viral spread of the practice of group chats of people unfamiliar with each other (with different cultures of behavior), I predict in the future a further increase in the number of conflicts and crimes based on communication in the chats of parents and residents. Alas.

Unfortunately, there are very few effective psychological tools for overcoming this problem. However, you can still give a dozen recommendations:

1. Always remember that among the virtual interlocutors there may be an inadequate or not entirely sober person. Or a person with wounded pride or simply brought up in a different culture of communication, including a foreigner. And therefore, the use of words and expressions in the chat should be extremely careful, trying to exclude any resentment and conflict.

2. To set as moderators a group of extremely correct and objective people who are able to intervene in time and stop not a discussion, but a showdown.

3. In case of systemic rudeness and conflicts in chats, create an initiative group and collectively contact the management (school administration, class teacher, management company, etc.) with a request to eliminate this form of communication and make decisions at real meetings or by the administration.

4. In spite of the emerging groups of "chat-gods" to create separate alternative chats only from sane cultured people, where it will be possible to calmly develop a common reasonable position. Which, then agreed, as if by notes, can already be posted in the general chat and won by a majority of votes.

5. Do not get personal and try to support each other in the chat, not by attacking someone, but by expressing direct approval of the one whose position you support: this feeling of a group often knocks down the activity of toxic people and helps to reduce the severity of disputes.

6. Expecting possible virtual quarrels, go to the chat only when you have already invited your like-minded people, or just decent people, with personal calls and messages outside the chat. This will protect you from possible indicative flogging.

7. Resist the urge to go into insults, even if you are already insulted! Here it is necessary not to demand an apology from someone who has gone beyond, but to draw the attention of the rest of the group to the ethical incorrectness of such communication. And the team can already take the side of the one who is clearly "virtually trampled" and squeeze the chat raider out of the chat.

8. To be able to use the simplest technologies of "psychological aikido defense" in a dispute, such as: "Thank you for your opinion!", "How we complement each other!", "Let's do it together!" you can negotiate, not conflict! "," Although I do not agree with you in general, but you also offer something correct in private and this is great! "," I am sure that we will come to an agreement anyway! "," What we are the most active, this in itself is wonderful! And we will agree on the details "," You said too harshly, but it is interesting, I will comprehend "," Let's think it over together, because we are an example for all our activity! "," We must be examples to our children, and therefore we cannot argue!".

9. Do not allow threats, since everything that has been said publicly will have to be performed in order not to lose credibility in the group completely.

10. Do not provoke virtual fighters, taking them "weakly", expressing doubts that they will trigger any threats made to you: you hardly need fights and beatings in real life.

11. To take the threats of "chat authorities" seriously, taking care of their safety and the safety of property. Including, promptly take screen shots of correspondence if you are directly insulted or threatened. With this, you can file a lawsuit for the protection of honor and dignity, and prove to the police the validity of your demand to open a criminal case, or at least check the available facts.

12. In general, do not take to heart the virtual rudeness of haters, do not get depressed because of this. Remember:

There are always more good people than bad people, they are just always busy with work and therefore they are not visible.

Therefore, they need to be organized and encouraged.

I hope my comments and advice will be useful to you: there will always be a virtual world in your parental or owner's chats, and there will be as few haters and chat raiders as possible. The terrible tragedy in Volgograd, where a worthy member of the parental community, Roman Grebenyuk, was killed, may it never happen again! And all of us will leave the chat without psychological or physical violence.