Why I've decided to use the block button
I love the period of reflection that comes to me around New Year's Day. This year I've made the decision to block agents of chaos and destruction as a way to maintain my mental health
Until now I've tended to mute instead of block but from now on I've decided I’m going to block instead. I want to make sure that I virtually hang out with people who I would hang out with in real life. It can be harder to figure out who is challenging and who is a trouble-maker in online interactions. Not only that but I don’t want to create an echo chamber around me. I like being challenged so long as it is civilised - indeed that’s my favourite way of interacting. My mind becomes alive in the face of interesting, thoughtful challenges to my viewpoint. Having said that, throughout my life I have found that some people give me energy and others enervate me and I need to mind my mental health. Especially in the fraught online world where the lack of the warmth of humanity can make the world feel that bit crueller and colder.
The great American psychoanalyst James Hollis recommends when we are making a decision that we should ask ourselves Does this choice diminish me, or enlarge me? I thought about this and consequently I decided to become a person who blocks dishonest people who I believe create online chaos. I reflected that I spend a lot of time online anyway and so I don’t have spare time to deal with dishonesty. I want to be ‘enlarged’ by civilised and challenging discussion, not silenced, and thereby diminished, by people who misrepresent and gaslight as a means of distracting entertainment. I don’t really care if it is me these people are misrepresenting or if it’s someone else - agents of chaos should mostly be avoided if at all possible.
In this short clip I discuss the merits of blocking versus muting with the brilliant family lawyer Sarah Philimore and I come to the conclusion that blocking is the better option: https://x.com/OsborneInk/status/1732123836210921538?s=20
The full interview can be seen here on
As always, I’m very keen to read all thoughtful and civilised comments!
This is somewhat unrelated, but... I've tended to dismiss the fairly common idea that tone can't be conveyed in writing (and on the internet) for the simple reason that we all "get" tone perfectly fine when immersed in a really good novel, but there IS some truth (not everyone is a good writer, and not everyone is a good reader, either) to it and the comment thread that was already here when I posted this probably illustrates that.
And I'm wondering if that doesn't "translate" into "real life" as well. All those kids who become convinced they are autistic, when they certainly wouldn't have been diagnosed 20-odd years ago (my daughter is one of them), what if all these online interactions have had the opposite effect, where they don't understand tone "in real life" because they're used to communicating in writing?
It's the same with concepts of what constitutes civilized. I think we all used to know what it was, and it usually started something like, "That's an interesting take, but the way I see it..." Civilized discussion never means no disagreement. It means being polite in the face of disagreement. If you wouldn't say it in a passionate pub discussion about politics with a coworker you really get along with on a Friday night, it's probably too much. I've been having discussions with my kids about contentious non-gender topics (like the death penalty and the meaning of happiness) every day because they need to develop those skills and they don't get the chance within their own generation, sadly.
Caveat: I didn't get to listen to the podcast where you discuss blocking because it's premium-only, but this sounded like an interesting thing to discuss anyway.
Hi Stella, I think the problem is with how we define "civilized interaction" and how we make assumption about the other person's honesty. Where exactly is the line between being passionate / wording your opinions strongly and being uncivilized? Isn't it different for everyone, depending on your level of tolerance? How do we know if a person is being dishonest? Let's say, for example, I think that people who say "I absolutely don't care if my child is straight or gay" are being somewhat dishonest - and you think I am being uncivilized and homophobic. Would I even get a chance to explain why I hold such opinion if you immediately block me? Of course, this is your space and you are free to define your rules as you see fit but are you not concerned that people will tiptoe around, afraid to express different opinions because of the way you assess their civility and make assumptions about their honesty?