Learning to interact correctly in online communities as a neurodivergent

Actionable suggestion that I use for myself: ask yourself mutiple times WHY you're posting something. If you're satisfied with your reason(s), go ahead, be yourself, learn to have a thicker skin.

This has helped me to not post when it was simply me having a knee jerk reaction. It also help to consider what you're getting from it and what you're giving others.

When you reset to your default habits and possibly get bad reactions from people, be honest and evaluate how you communicated and whether their reaction is really not warranted (in your perspective). At times, I've been inconsiderate and obnoxious and got bad reactions. I try to accept that because any other reaction would actually be unexpected. Yes, we all mess up sometimes.

> I'm at a crossroads and unsure of how to proceed.

Have you considered that perhaps online communities are simply unhealthy and withdrawing (at least to lurking) is the best course of action?

You might find it easier in primarily neurodivergent communities. In my experience, Mastodon has a lot of neurodivergent people - there are (at least) two servers especially for us, neurodifferent.me and autistics.life.

Also, don't use AI - it sounds wrong and bland. For me, I tend to adopt the writing style of what I've been reading recently (it's most notable when I pause what I'm writing and come back to it after reading something from the 1800s) so I might recommend reading it for a while to get your brain in that mode and then maybe posting, if you also do that.

Best of luck!

One of the things that I’ve found interesting about neurodivergent people who are sometimes offensive is that they are not abnormally hard to offend. I’m not neurodivergent so I hesitate to speak to your experience but perhaps try this.

Before engaging, ask yourself, if positions were reversed how would hearing this make me feel? Is that how I want people to feel when reading what I wrote?

Treat it like a chess game. If I do X (call out their ignorance for example) they will do Y (feel attacked and shut down). Do I want them doing Y? If not, what do I want?

Everything you say and do, does things to other people’s thoughts and emotions. If you want them to feel good, follow the feeling good script (honest engagement with their positive qualities, friendly behavior, active listening, positive engagement with what they’re saying) if you want to pick a fight follow the fight picking script (say rude things, call names, make people feel bad)

Sorry if that all sounds stupid. While following my own advice I realized that what I said could sound painfully obvious, and maybe is offensive and patronizing. In my defense I don’t know what’s obvious to you and what is not.

So if it helps and made you feel good you’re welcome. If it’s offensive or I made things worse, I apologize. (See what I did there? Predicted how what I said might make someone feel)?

Hard to make a recommendation without a diagnosis, hard to make a diagnosis without information. You don’t have a posting history on HN so I can’t observe the behavior you’re talking about which would be the obvious place to try some debugging.

(you could look through comments of my HN comments and occasionally see someone point out a sign of my condition)

I'm Autistic and ADHD and struggle a lot with different aspects of communication.

Have you considered accessing supports like seeing a psychologist, a speech therapist, or occupational therapist that works with adults? You've got a pretty clear goal, wanting to communicate more effectively in writing/in online spaces, and spending a few months (or however long) working on that goal with a professional can help you build the skills in that area. I suggest finding a professional because it's not really possible to learn and build communication skills alone, and trying to learn from how people react to you in online spaces hasn't helped, and having someone who actually has your best interest in mind is hopefully going be more helpful than anything else.

Others have highlighted some ideas around reevaluating which communities you spend time in, and while, yeah, sure there are parts of the internet that might be worth reconsidering taking part in, that doesn't really help you engage and connect in the ways you want to. Even otherwise okay online spaces can be really tough for neurodivergent people. I hope you can figure it out

Find smaller communities where this is less of a problem? Possibly filled with neurodivergent people you click with?

Like, there is a reason Discord I am most active in is full of people that have ADHD. And big chunk on spectrum. And big chunk queer.

Other thing I presonally often use is ... many times I got bad reaction online, it was because I posted my opinion on particular thing, and too many people took it as if I am stating an universally true fact. So I am adding little extra things that make it clearer that I am not making universal statements.

I.e. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38899647 I spent 5 lines advocating how diversity is the best - but I still end on "But I do understand the pull of insular culture and small villages, where diversity is less of a virtue."

Could you please provide an example conversation?

It's nothing to do with you. Be yourself, find your people. Personally, I consider this site to be an exhibition of personality flaws. (Not everyone). Serious egos hell bent on convincing themselves of their intelligence, people who seem to live in highly toxic environments and project that on to people from elsewhere, people who can't stand someone having a different or unusual opinion, ... It's not you, there are all sorts out there. Ignore it all, have your say, ready the pinch of salt, and be entertained.

I would take a closer look at your interactions and try and identify what, specifically, is leading to the negative reactions and adjust accordingly.

It's also worth considering, a lot of online communities aren't the most civil of places. It's best not to take these interactions personally.

In the past I’ve had some people accuse me of being a troll. On reflection, I found I was lonely and taking an opposing viewpoint not with the intent of upsetting anyone, but with the intent of having a discussion and to keep it going. Also, because some people had very black and white views on what I thought was a more nuanced issue, so I was trying to help people see that nuance. People tend to engage more when debating against someone who they feel is wrong, than with someone they agree with. While this probably wasn’t healthy, it did help fill the void for a while. It did hurt when people would twist that into me being a troll, as that was never my intent. The first couple times it happened I spend a lot of time reading and re-reading the exchange to try and figure out what I was doing wrong and couldn’t figure it out. Of course there are people who simple use the term to discredit someone when they run out of arguments for their views in a debate, a standard ad hominem argument.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten better about noticing when I’m headed down that path and stopping myself, or simply disengaging with online communities where there is a lot of one-sided thinking that triggers my need to try to provide context or explain the other side (even if I didn’t necessarily agree with that other side, I felt like I could see where they were coming from and tried to help other people see it too, so there is less of a rift).

I’m not sure if this is similar to what you’re going through, or helps you I see a motivation you may have not realized. If so, I did find disengaging from sites like Reddit helped a lot.

Here at HN, when I first joined I read the guidelines[0] (and a few times since then). I found it really helped to make me more aware (though I’m sure not perfect). The community here also does a good job of regulating itself and sticking to the principles, which helps. Bad behavior isn’t rewarded like it is many other places, and the lack of an inbox system keeps things from getting out of hand.

In person communities are almost always better. If you have those available to you, use them. Online communities are a poor substitute when overused.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

4chan is waiting for you.

The ride never ends

It’s easy, ask yourself, why join online communities? Is it worth it? [hint: its not]

Like you say, it takes a significant toll on your mental health - it’s not worth it.

People are absolutely feral online, nasty, thoughtless, disgusting. Why? Because the most people are truly incredibly unintelligent, racist, misogynistic, sheep. And the people that flock to online communities and voice themselves are usually the worst of the bunch. All the filters you’d get in real life disappear.

Consider too that nowadays, most online platforms are gamed for power/money/advertising/views/politics and most platforms have political actors instilling propaganda.

I haven’t had any form of online presence for the last 10 or so years. I only use hacker news. Even hacker news pisses me off with the constant posts about LLMs and AI.

Online, you don’t even know who you’re talking to? It may appear you’re talking to a little old lady, but it may well be an IDF solider !

Stop identifying yourself as neurodivergent. Besides it being an incredibly unspecific term, it gives you a way to identify, and hence behave.

Instead, identify as something else that’s easier to get along with.

This isn’t some “woo magic thinking” suggestion, but it’s well-documented that we humans behave in ways that are congruent with our self-image. Change your self-image, change your behavior. (Or at least facilitate that change)

One other suggestion is to start filling your head with positive material that reflects who you want to be. For example, I wanted to stop giving myself excuses so I started listening to the Jocko Podcast. After even just a few days, I notice my mindset and behavior will shift.

This is what I do. So I guess it’s “advice to myself”, but maybe it’ll help you too.

Cheers mate.

Welcome to the internet?

The best way to deal with negative reactions is to stop caring what people think. Be yourself and if they don't like it, it's their problem.

Don't bother, the internet is not the real world. The unreasonable man changes the world, not the other way around.

Have you tried not caring so much about what total strangers (that have no effect on your life whatsoever) think of your online posts?

Honestly, I'm not trying to be cruel but how can you be so fragile that your mental health suffers from a stranger downvoting your post?

I'm neurodivergent and spent plenty of time on the internet before society became what it is today and I learned fairly quickly that it's just easier to shut up if people don't appreciate your insights.

Don’t. Just don’t expend the effort, because it’s a harmful net negative. Instead focus all that energy in the real world with real people who are capable of reciprocating with actual love and affection.

Online communities are artificial, frequently superficial, and commonly echo chambers that only exist to amplify something at cost and hostility to everything else. Online communities can be extremely beneficial in answering a question or providing supplemental guidance, but that’s all and it’s quite shallow.

Edit:

Also don’t fear the downvote. The internet is filled with stupid people, narcissists, trolls, and such. The hostility you face may very well not be you. I am frequently downvoted on HN for suggesting the developers measure things before making unfounded assumptions about performance or for commenting about Gaza that doesn’t amount to genocide. I own those downvotes proudly.

I feel you. I resorted to just lurk and move on. Good luck

I just read this again and all is fine.

https://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/answers/rants/X0001_ACT_NO...

If you must change don't change into that what they want you to become. Wear the downvotes with pride. Become so arrogant as to not care what anyone else thinks of you. What you think of yourself is enough.