This is how others judge us on the Internet

The popularization of the use of the Internet during the last 15 years has not simply made us connect more and more to the network of networks. In addition to using the resources that we have access to thanks to this great invention, many people who make regular use of social networks have experienced how their self-esteem has been connected to the public image they give online.

And if there are people who notice how their well-being or discomfort depends in part on what happens on the Internet, it is precisely because we are constantly judging those behind those Facebook, Instagram profiles or similar. Even if we don't realize it, we generate a positive or negative emotional response to the self-referential content that others publish.

We can choose whether or not to be interested in what others think of us, but the truth is that regardless of that, wherever there is a publication of ours, there will be people evaluating you, usually in a way little rational.

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How we judge ourselves through the Internet

Here are some samples of how people tend to judge others based on just a few photos and status updates.

Positivity is valued more

It has been found that people who tend to make negative posts, such as social complaint content or complaints about studies, tend to be less valued. However, too much joy in status updates and photos it generates an artificial sensation that seems to have been created to deceive others.

It must be taken into account that a person can understand a social network as a space in which to express their stress or raise awareness in others through criticism, without saying much about his personality. Similarly, others may want to use Facebook photo albums as a compilation of happy images, and that doesn't say much about them either. However, we ignore this reflection and believe that what is on the Internet is a direct reflection of personality, leading us to reject or accept that person.

Sensitivity to boasting

We tend to be particularly sensitive to posts that can be construed as showing off. In fact, in general, the assessment we make of someone is more positive if the number of posts that talk about achievements and personal qualities it is reduced.

Thus, something as innocent as celebrating that we have won a karate championship makes us value ourselves less, despite that this is more important to us than a lot of other content we have published before (music videos, memes, etc.).

Instead, things that have to do with opinions about events that are foreign to oneself, or that occur around one, but that are not a direct reflection of their qualities, are seen with better eyes. For example:

Visiting the temple of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The facade is incredible.

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Why are we so hard on the Internet valuing others?

When we see hundreds of posts from various people on the internet, we tend to go by much less rational intuitions when deciding who is worthwhile and who is not. That means we adopt totally biased and irrational ways of thinking without making us feel strange.

In short, we have a large amount of information about the others, but this gives few details and is therefore of poor quality; so that, our way of judging those people is also fast and lazy.

How about we use the chat more?

It must be taken into account that these psychological biases when judging others over the Internet basically occur when there is no interaction: someone posts something and the other person sees it. What happens if instead of staying in that passive attitude we start conversations? After all, a conversation in a chat is much more like a face-to-face interaction, situations in which we are used to being more moderate when making judgments about what the other is like.

Some researchers believe that the solution to that kind of paranoia that torments many people afraid of causing a A bad image on the Internet is simply talking more, showing how we are on the inside in a context of conversation in real time. real. In this way, those filters that keep us away from others begin to lose prominence; we force ourselves to spend time and a certain amount of effort to take part in an exchange of sentences, which makes us become involved and let's think that if we are bothering to do that, it will be because the other person deserves that we do not rush when it comes to judge her Chats can be spaces for fellowship in the individualistic and fragmented reality of the Internet.