Natalie Wolchover
LifesLittleMysteries

With a presidential campaign, health care and the gun control debate in the news these days, one can't help getting sucked into the flame wars that are Internet comment threads. But psychologists say this addictive form of vitriolic back and forth should be avoided — or simply censored by online media outlets — because it actually damages society and mental health. 

These days, online comments "are extraordinarily aggressive, without resolving anything," said Art Markman, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. "At the end of it you can't possibly feel like anybody heard you. Having a strong emotional experience that doesn't resolve itself in any healthy way can't be a good thing." 

If it's so unsatisfying and unhealthy, why do we do it? 

A perfect storm of factors come together to engender the rudeness and aggression seen in the comments' sections of Web pages, Markman said. First, commenters are often virtually anonymous, and thus, unaccountable for their rudeness. Second, they are at a distance from the target of their anger — be it the article they're commenting on or another comment on that article — and people tend to antagonize distant abstractions more easily than living, breathing interlocutors. Third, it's easier to be nasty in writing than in speech, hence the now somewhat outmoded practice of leaving angry notes (back when people used paper), Markman said.

Related: A typical day on the Internet 

And because comment-section discourses don't happen in real time, commenters can write lengthy monologues, which tend to entrench them in their extreme viewpoint. "When you're having a conversation in person, who actually gets to deliver a monologue except people in the movies? Even if you get angry, people are talking back and forth and so eventually you have to calm down and listen so you can have a conversation," Markman told Life's Little Mysteries. 

Chiming in on comment threads may even give one a feeling of accomplishment, albeit a false one. "There is so much going on in our lives that it is hard to find time to get out and physically help a cause, which makes 'armchair activism' an enticing [proposition]," a blogger at Daily Kos opined in a July 23 article. 

And finally, Edward Wasserman, Knight Professor in Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University, noted another cause of the vitriol: bad examples set by the media. "Unfortunately, mainstream media have made a fortune teaching people the wrong ways to talk to each other, offering up Jerry Springer, Crossfire, Bill O'Reilly. People understandably conclude rage is the political vernacular, that this is how public ideas are talked about," Wasserman wrote in an article on his university's website. "It isn't." 

Communication, the scholars say, is really about taking someone else's perspective, understanding it, and responding. "Tone of voice and gesture can have a large influence on your ability to understand what someone is saying," Markman said. "The further away from face-to-face, real-time dialogue you get, the harder it is to communicate." 

In his opinion, media outlets should cut down on the anger and hatred that have become the norm in reader exchanges. "It's valuable to allow all sides of an argument to be heard. But it's not valuable for there to be personal attacks, or to have messages with an extremely angry tone. Even someone who is making a legitimate point but with an angry tone is hurting the nature of the argument, because they are promoting people to respond in kind," he said. "If on a website comments are left up that are making personal attacks in the nastiest way, you're sending the message that this is acceptable human behavior."

Related: Niceness is in your DNA, scientists find

For their part, people should seek out actual human beings to converse with, Markman said — and we should make a point of including a few people in our social circles who think differently from us. "You'll develop a healthy respect for people whose opinions differ from your own," he said. 

Working out solutions to the kinds of hard problems that tend to garner the most comments online requires lengthy discussion and compromise. "The back-and-forth negotiation that goes on in having a conversation with someone you don't agree with is a skill," Markman said. And this skill is languishing, both among members of the public and our leaders. 

Related:

• 15 Weird Things Humans Do Every Day, and Why
• Understanding the 10 Most Destructive Human Behaviors
• People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say 

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

"What would you trade for Internet access?" That's the question the Boston Consulting Group posed to survey participants across the globe. The results from the USA might surprise you:

• 21 percent would stop having sex. It's like saying: "Sorry honey, I would rather read Kim Kardashian's Twitter feed."
• 84 percent would ditch their GPS. Let the "Why don't we just ask for directions?" fights commence.
• 83 percent would say good-bye to fast food. We finally found what would break America's drive-thru obsession.
• 77 percent would cut out chocolate. Which means 23 percent of people are crazy enough about cocoa beans to keep their candy instead of the world wide web.
• 73 percent would skip happy hour for good. Let's toast to the web: Nearly three-quarters of Americans would abstain from alcoholic beverages in order to go on the Internet.
• 43 percent would put an end to exercising. Any excuse to skip the gym, right?
• 10 percent would throw away their car keys. The skyrocketing price of gas doesn't hurt either.

5 Ways to Heat Up Your Sex Life

And the kicker:

7 percent would stop showering. That's right, people are willing to give up basic hygiene for Words With Friends, which we can't help but think might actually limit real life friends.

Bringing The Sexy Back

And it seems that our counterparts across the pond are even more digitally dependent than Americans: A whopping 17 percent of Brits would forego bathing for an entire year in order to get web access. These findings are astounding and a bit disturbing. With a growing number of studies showing how technology can do a number on our health, from messing up sleep patterns to hurting self-esteem, we can't help but wonder…Is it time for a digital detox?

More Links:
40 Things You Should Know About Sex By Age 40
5 Ways Your Job Is Making You Fat
Is Facebook Ruining Your Self-Esteem?
The 8 Best Cities for Singles Over 40

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Wondering if that fabulous man you've been chatting with online is really a mountain-climbing astronaut fluent in six languages, including Latin?

According to a new study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, chances are he's simply one of the many people who can't help stretching the truth when they hit the keyboard.

"I wouldn't say that human beings are a big pack of liars," says Robert S. Feldman, professor of psychology and dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "But I would say that it's very easy to lie."

This is especially true when we go online, according to Feldman's research.

In a new paper entitled "Liar, Liar, Hard Drive on Fire:  How Media Context Affects Lying Behavior," Feldman found that the closer people are to each other, the more difficult it is to lie to each other. And the further apart we are, the more the lies fly.

In his most recent study, Feldman (who's studied deception for about 30 years) put together 110 same-sex pairs of University of Massachusetts students, asking them to "get to know each other" for approximately 15 minutes. One group of students talked face-to-face, another chatted via IM and the last emailed back and forth. Then Feldman asked the students to go over a transcript (or recording) of the conversation and identity each time an untruth -- even a white lie -- was told.

"At first, almost everybody said there are no cases where [they weren't] being truthful," he says. "So we said, humor us. Eventually, what happened was that 70 percent of the people found something they said was not accurate. It was a lie. And the rate of lying was about three times greater for email than it was for face-to-face conversation."

Why is it so much easier to lie via email (or even IM) than it is to fib face-to- face?

"It's easier to lie online primarily because the psychological distance between the two people communicating is greater," he says. "When you're face-to-face, you see the person, you see their reactions to what you're saying, you know they can see you. But when you're online, you're talking to a disembodied person. You don't see their reactions to what you're saying and I think it gives you a kind of freedom to be more deceptive."

Feldman says that in his study, most of the falsehoods were of the "little white lie" category, like agreeing with someone that you liked a movie that you didn't really like. But other lies were more ambitious.

"Some would say they'd been to a certain place they'd never been or say they were a captain of their high school track team and they weren't," he says. "The lies varied in terms of how profound they really were. Some were small lies, but others were total whoppers."

Rebecca Price, a 34-year-old development officer from Seattle, admits she practiced some heavy duty online deception back in her college days.

"When AOL chat rooms were popular, I used modeling shots of Meg Ryan as my profile picture," she says. "And not one of [the guys I wrote to] ever noticed. All that mattered was that the girl in the picture was hot. I also used tell them that I was a retired model. Or sometimes I would tell them I was a single mom working at the local Dairy Queen or Whataburger. This was my favorite story."

Feldman says that lying not only comes easily to human beings, we almost come to expect -- and want it.

"We don't necessarily want to hear the truth," he says. "A lot of the time, there's almost a kind of conspiracy between people. If someone says you did a terrific job on a presentation, you don't want to question them. You totally accept it. You might have suspicions that it wasn't such a great presentation, but why delve into that?"

Related:

• Pants on fire: Scientifically proven ways to catch a liar
• Paging Dr. Internet: Searches for kidney stones spike in summer

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Back in the day, our grandparents turned to their family doctor with questions about their health. These days, we turn to someone much closer -- our computers.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, eight in ten Internet users look online for health information. But can Googling our symptoms actually provide not just us -- but medical researchers -- with crucial information about disease and its causes?

Dr. Benjamin Breyer, an assistant professor of urology at the University of California San Francisco, says yes.

"Search engines can help us see the patterns," says Breyer, lead author of a new study in the journal Urology entitled "Use of Google Insights for Search to Track Seasonal and Geographic Kidney Stone Incidence in the United States."  "There are all types of phenomena in the environment and compared to search data, we can see if any of these things influence disease."

In the study, Breyer took kidney stone patient data from hospitals around the country and compared it with people's Google searches for kidney stone-related terms.

"We looked at the data and lo and behold, the searches mirrored the known regional and temporal data," he says.

In other words, peoples' searches for information on kidney stones -- which affect 13 percent of men and 7 percent of women in the U.S. -- mirrored previous findings that show kidney stones to be more prevalent in the summer and in the so-called "stone belt":  the Southeast.

"It's partly related to dehydration," says Breyer regarding the summer-stone connection. "People are more active in the summer, plus it's hotter and they're sweating more. That precipitates the minerals that compose kidney stones."

As for the "kidney stone belt," Breyer says this could be temperature-related and/or be linked to the higher levels of obesity found in the region.

"It's one of those diseases that's multifactorial," he says.

But kidney stones aren't the only disease affected by the seasons, he says.

"Other diseases have temporal incidence," says Breyer. "Having a heart attack is more common in the winter, probably due to the effects of the cold on vasculature."

Breyer hopes that in the future, search data will allow researchers to explore new ideas about possible links between illnesses and changes in our surroundings.

"We can potentially collect data that's input from millions and millions of people in real time all over the country and the world and use that to study disease," he says.

 As for those concerned about a kidney stone attack in this summer of sizzling hot temperatures (and considering how painful these puppies can be, who wouldn't be?), Breyer recommends drinking lots of water and avoiding salt -- not just from the shaker but from processed foods and high-sodium restaurant meals.

"Staying hydrated and avoiding salt is the main adage for kidney stone prevention," he says. "People who eat a lot of salt are more prone to forming stones -- and to repeat stones."

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

daily-consumertips.com

Don't fall for it!

Do you know the "real dangers" of having a toxic colon?

Neither did "Natalie Winston," a "reporter" at Daily Consumer Tips, until she "recently put the Acai Berry Diet to the test."

Surely you heard about it on "ABC, Fox News Channel, CBS, CNN, USAToday and Consumer Reports."

After four weeks on the Acai Berry Select supplement and Acai Advanced Colon Cleanse, Winston not only lost an "astonishing amount of weight," the supplements also bosted her energy level!  

But wait! There's more!

In fact, the claims about acai berries made in advertisements that appear in pop-ups, Google search results, on real news sites (including msnbc.com) and even on WebMd.com, are not based in real research done by actual reporters. Today, the Federal Trade Commission is doing something about it.

In a press conference held Tuesday, the FTC announced a crackdown on fake news websites advertising acai berry weight-loss pills. The FTC announcement reads, in part:

Millions of consumers are being lured to websites that imitate those of reputable news organizations.  The "reporters" on these sites supposedly have done independent evaluations of acai berry supplements, and claim that the products cause major weight loss in a short period of time with no diet or exercise.  In reality the websites are deceptive advertisements placed by third-party or "affiliate"marketers.  The websites are aimed at enticing consumers to buy the featured acai berry weight-loss products. 

The FTC filed charges against companies and individuals blurring the lines between advertisements and journalism promoting false information about acai and colon cleansing. In some cases, companies and individuals were hit with temporary restraining orders preventing assets from being moved or records from being destroyed. The offending websites must prominently display a statement that they are being sued by the FTC, or be removed from the Web.  

As for the "as seen on ABC, Fox News Channel, CBS, CNN, USAToday and Consumer Reports" — yeah, that never happened either. At least in the way the acai scammers would want you to believe.  Way back in 2009, Consumer Reports issued a warning about websites and pop-up ads promoting acai products infiltrating the Internet, and mentioned how the scammers came across those acai-endorsing logos: 

On May 24 [2009] "60 Minutes" re-aired its January report on the possible life-extending properties of resveratrol—a substance mostly found in grapes, red wine, and purple grape juice. Last year, Oprah Winfrey’s medical expert, Mehmet Oz, M.D., mentioned resveratrol and acai berries on his anti-aging checklist.

One site that’s pushing a resveratrol product actually has video from the "60 Minutes" report and a photo of Dr. Oz. Some sites even use the doctor’s name in their Web address. But the Oprah Web site has issued a notice that neither Oprah nor Dr. Oz has endorsed any product containing resveratrol or acai berry. 

In January 2009, Consumer Reports reported that "evidence on the health benefits of acai berries is scant." The bottom line:

CU’s medical consultants advise consumers to be wary of formulations of resveratrol or acai berries being marketed on the Web and in health food stores. While the encouraging test tube and experimental animal research, with purified resveratrol, has yielded some beneficial results, any extrapolation to humans leaves much to be desired – not the least of which are quantitative and safety aspects of its use.

If you want to know the real dangers of having a toxic colon, you should probably ask your doctor.

More on the annoying way we live now:

• Don't click this link between April 18 and April 24!
• Notorious NSFW website cleans up its act
• Facebook photo-tagging scam running rampant

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook.