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A Millennial friend of mine was angry and upset because an acquaintance had stood him up. They had made an appointment through Facebook, and she did not show up. While he talked about this event, he started fantasizing about a rating system to be integrated as a Facebook feature. He imagined that a feature could be introduced to enable the network to review the experience with a given person to either motivate people to be more reliable or prevent others from wasting their time with them. This idea is less interesting than the fact that he came up with it. Obviously, it constituted a coping mechanism when confronted with disappointment and hurt, as we can judge from the circumstances when the idea came to his mind.
The situation illustrates how technology has shaped emotional functioning. Instead of being just a neutral carrier of messages, it determines people’s perception of options in dealing with their emotions. Imagine an alternative scenario. Instead of fantasizing about creating a system of punishing people for unreliable behavior with one click, he could simply talk to the person he felt wronged by. Such a conversation would have a different emotional impact on both parties. The relation would have transformed thanks to such a conversation in a very different way than online canceling or rating could ever allow.
A Chinese study, which examined the diffusion of emotions on the social network Weibo, has revealed that anger spreads much faster than other emotions, for example joy, on the Internet.1 Maybe there is something about the Internet that makes it compatible with expressing anger in a more satisfying way than other emotions. It may fit more to the expression of coldness, negativity, or insult rather than warmth.
The Internet has liberated us from the need to store and retain information. Nowadays, these functions of our brain are externalized. Can we observe a similar trend in our emotional system? Anger can be expressed immediately with one click. Does this projection of anger deprive us of a deep engagement with this emotion? GPS has made it easier for us to find places, but it has also disabled our capacity to navigate and connect to the outside world. Similarly, an online expression of anger can provide a quick comfort, but the deeper inner processes behind this emotion may be muted. Perhaps one enjoys an immediate relief, but loses something more important in the long run. Continuing on the subject of GPS, one can imagine that its regular use may determine one’s choices in life. For example, one may be disinclined to become lost or ask strangers for help. This may limit one’s options. Similarly, having the intermediary technology shape our emotional expression may deprive us of choices and risks in the realm outside of online communication because it comes to fall further and further outside our capacity the less we exercise it.
Social media seems to have induced a habit of structuring our conversations. I often see a short-cu