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On all these sites, including this one, why is the engagement model to comment on things? At family gatherings, prior to COVID, I always noticed real life chit chat to be bizarrely opinionated and biased as soon as it veered from the weather or traffic. What is the value we are getting from commenting, that makes it “worth it” to us to give up anonymity?

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We are social animals

Sense of gratification from reinforcing our understanding of an issue, our world

Sense of accomplishment for being upvoted or proclaimed to be smart or even popular

Appeasing a yearning to be noticed

Short-sighted distractions to alleviate other pressures and hardships in daily life

Making little etchings on cyber cave walls to mark that we were here

Some other unknown reason that we may understand at a later time in history

...

Thanks for the question, btw. It made me think more than I had anticipated

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