The ability to up- and downvote posts and comments is useful but the score should not be displayed to the users and you shouldn’t be able to enable it even if you wanted to. This means both, posts made by you as well as by others.
Nobody wants to see their messages get downvoted. This is bad for our mental health as individuals but especially as a group. It’s like walking up to a person on the street, saying “I don’t like you” and then moving on. You’re free to not like (downvote) someone but they don’t need to hear it. If you really want them to know then write a message and explain yourself.
Upvotes on the other hand skews the reality and encourages groupthink. People say what is popular even if they don’t fully buy it themselves and conversely refrain from saying things they truly believe because they then dont get the upvotes and get downvoted instead.
Seeing the scores also primes the reader. When something is heavily upvoted for example you assume it to be true/good instead of using your own judgement to decide.
I think that at some point in your life you gotta face the fact that there is a sizeable percentage of population that is going to disagree with you whatever your opinion is. And more than that, sometimes you’re gonna say dumb things and in that moment you need the checks and balances of other individuals to tell you that you’re an asshole. The opposite mechanism of that is called echo chambering and in less than two decades of social media already produced flat earthers, incels, anti-vaxxers and a fresh rise of fascism in western society.
Being wrong is not the end of the world, admitting that and trying to fix it is the first step towards being a better individual.
Either that or go retire on a mountain and spend your time with goats. They’re never gonna downvote your posts and you will increase cheese production, this way we all win.
Yeah god knows I’ve been downvoted. Take it as some introspection. Do they really not like what you’re saying? Was there honestly a reason for it? Is that a community you want to be a part of?
Downvotes are the spice to message boards, people need to know when they’re posting crap that nobody likes. Look at Facebook. No dislikes so everyone thinks their right wing shitty memes are worth posting because 200 people on the platform said it was funny. Same here, if you want to post that, you should know how many people disliked it
You don’t have to face it all the time without asking for it though.
Has nothing to do with reactions. Just telling someone they are an asshole is simply noise. And upvotes\downvotes do not allow you to embed arguments.
Actually this very mechanism is called echo chambering. When you pressure people thinking differently to be silent, so they leave. And, of course, those groups you’ve mentioned existed long before social media.
Which is why wrong people shouldn’t have the downvote\upvote button, and right people don’t use those anyway.
You, like many others here are just focusing on downvotes which is not what my post is about. Instagram, Twitter and Facebook dont have downvotes but my argument applies to those platforms aswell. Seeing the number of likes is equally damaging and we should get rid of those aswell.
If I had a problem with people disagreeing with me I wouldn’t be making posts on c/unpopularopinion
I cannot speak for others, but I’m focusing on downvotes because you talked about downvotes and mental health (I even quoted you).
I kinda, sorta, 50% agree with the part about “upvotes”: I get what you’re talking about but I don’t think the “like/dislike” system is the cause of “pack mentality” in social media. I rather believe it’s an effect of this human aspect and it shouldn’t be stigmatized, but used as a point of reflection about the environment in which we post our topics.
But I’m not a psychologist or an anthropologist, so I’m not gonna argue with that.