Constructive versus Destructive!!

So over the last few months, I have read allot of posts, replies to posts, etc that have been made in various social media sites, from Twitter, ere, facebook and more. Over that time I have come to realize there are basically 3 types of responses; One that is truly social with no real intent of any kind other than to converse, One that is constructive providing excellent feedback and sparking a great back and forth debate, and One that is destructive, providing no real value, but only meant to be smug, glib, or belittling.

I myself have a rule if I do not have anything constructive to say, I will not say anything at all.

Others however do not. Some call people alcoholics or other names, even though they do not even know the person, because they do not like something that is said. Others make smart remarks, and others say nothing I care to repeat.

In some cases it is simply they do not read the whole post or reply. In other cases it is just because that is all they do, they feel it is their role in life to belittle others in order to make themselves feel good.

When it happens to me sometimes I delete the post, if you are not going to add something then why have the post there at all. Other times I try to further explain myself hoping that they just misunderstood something or did not read the whole thing. In most cases I ignore it.

It is really funny because every time it has happened to me I have received a huge amount of private mail telling me to ignore the people doing it. That it is all they do, reply to posts belittling others and calling them names etc.

To me it is just a waste. Saying anything destructive only makes you look bad. The morale is if you have nothing constructive to say do not say anything.  The other thing to remember is this philosophy can be used with regards to any interaction.