Thursday, January 24, 2013

Life Hack - don't read the comments

You can find anything on the internet these days. You don't have enough time to read all the expertly researched articles in your favourite hot and controversial topic. You probably go short of sleep and family time in the attempt.

But once you've finished that great article, my tip to you is to move on to the next great article on your search list. Quickly. Before you glance at the first comment. (Sorry, fellow bloggers.)

Resist the temptation to find out what other people think, to see if it matches what you think.

Articles are usually written by someone with some qualification on the topic, but if nothing else, a reputation to protect. Commenters only need a knee to jerk and a keyboard.

Typical Comments (edited for grammar and spelling)
  1. Loved this article - so true! I wish everyone knew this.
  2. Really interesting topic - I talk more about this on MY blog at bloglink.com.
  3. That's crazy! I would never want to do this, and the government better not make me. 
  4. Me neither, this is just wrong. Where will it end?
  5. To commenters: you should do some research. Did you actually read the whole article? Also read this and this..
  6. Screw your research; it's all biased from weirdos like you. How dare you imply I can't read?
  7. Whoa, I don't mean to start a fight. That isn't what I said.
  8. Weirdo. If you don't like it here, why don't you live somewhere else?
  9. Hey, I bought some great shoes really cheap - check it out at cheepshooz.com!
Really cool stuff, if you like reality shows. But all you get is rising blood pressure, or worse, your own time-wasting argument. (You can probably guess that I know this firsthand.)

The Good Comments

They're not all bad. You might be lucky, and a super expert has cast some pearls before swine.

But such an expert will have published those pearls somewhere else, in their own carefully-written article. You'll get much better value using your search engine than searching through comments.

Any other comment addicts out there? What do you think about writing comments?

1 comment:

  1. I always read the comments and enjoy their perspectives.

    ReplyDelete