Bring4th

I started thinking about how the internet makes so much information available to us, yet how much of this information is offered through an emotional lens. The amazing way that we have seen ideas spread through the internet has a significant impact on the way our social mind works. Ideas have the ability to spread like wildfire if they strike a particular chord with a particular culture on the web. Sometimes these ideas are transported on a river of emotional resonance, where people allow the emotional content of an idea flow through them while sharing it with others.

Sometimes, when an idea appeals to an emotional state like that, the resonance is pointing to the emotion rather than to a concept itself. Those who trust their intuition and follow it are pulled in a certain direction. We like some things and dislike others and follow the path that feels best to us.

When this happens, we can sometimes empower an idea with our own emotional resonance with neglect to our analytical side. There's a popular theme of making an emotional appeal while using words such as "Scientists say" or some other appeal from a false authority, citing evidence where there is none. Dots may also be connected which, when observed rationally, may not necessarily make much sense, yet we have connected them to support our previous notions which we "liked."

I think it is important to acknowledge our emotions with faith. I believe that our emotions are one of the greatest gifts we have as conscious beings. They hoist us up to a completely new level of conscious awareness in this universe. It's a completely unique landscape of experience in which we struggle to keep our footing. I also feel that to have complete and whole appreciation for this new landscape of consciousness, we explore and analyze this landscape always searching for truth. Our emotions will attract to us certain ideas or concepts which we can then hold up to the light. It is up to each of us to decide with how much light we wish to examine these things. The more truth sought, the greater the light needed. The ability of an individual to hold this certain amount of light is what allows the truth to become apparent to us in the first place.

What is an emotion?

(05-17-2013, 09:36 PM)Adonai One Wrote: [ -> ]What is an emotion?

IONs that radiate as you emote.

It's always an experience reading through the comments of a famous/infamous youtube video or news article and seeing the whole spectrum of responses and seeing the quite obvious emotional intrusion in a lot of them.

The internet has been an invaluable tool and the regard to recognising emotional influence in myself and others. Many hours have been spent looking through others comments and seeing possibilities of myself in the mirror, taking the parts I deem valuable and true and integrating it with my own experience. Also noting the pitfalls/deadends and self repeating prophecies that skew the truth of the information being expressed.

People often talk about the negative impacts of people socializing through the internet particularly the young and how it can skew there development, I'am of one of the first generations of youth who have grown up on the internet from an early age and I would say the possible negatives are nothing in comparison to the possible positives. The increased perspective of the self and the ability to access person to person exchanges at practicably any time easily does more to prepare a younger person for efficient interaction in the physical then before the creation of the internet.

I do believe, that experience of life of self and the emotional-cognitive development may have subtle changes/differences due to technological and social changes. Such generational changes does instigate some friction, as the older generation may grumble a bit about the 'youth these days'. I am looking forward to how the 'internet' generations will do in the future!

Part of the phenomenon called 'empathy' is the ability to understand what others are communicating and to understand the affective (emotional) experience of the other. This is usually done through one's experience with other people - to be able to understand another through the 'lens' of one's own bias. We use facial expressions, vocal qualities (intonations, volume, prosody, etc), and other sensory cues. When communicating through the internet, whether it be interacting with others through a forum or through social media, these cues are not readily available. Thus, there may be opportunities for projection and perhaps misunderstandings. Connections made on the internet affords a sort of distance and more control over what is communicated. We are able to 'role play' in a more overt manner by presenting self through a persona, which may have some connection to the usernames that we select (not all the time tho). This may allow people to experiment with a part of themselves and the emotional experiences tied to this persona. The anonymity might help people to explore some aspect of themselves that they may not feel comfortable exploring with family and friends. In some sense tho, this is no different from how things were prior to internet. We got sent chain letters and wrote to pen pals, now we have spammers and trolls and online buddies.