Commiseration or Perpetuation

I recently read this article by Adam Waytz about the ways in which one's expectations of an experience (going to the dentist, going to graduate school) can shape one's experience. If you expect to have a bad time, you're going to have a bad time.

Waytz cites the heavily-circulated phdcomics as one way in which, in terms of the ways in which graduate school is depicted or perceived, "negativity runs rampant" online.

This helps to make a more general point about venting online, or venting in general. Noting the negative aspects of life can feel cathartic and, assuming these comments are met with empathy, they can help people feel supported and loved and capable. Similarly, the receiver of a message about some negative aspect of life might not feel so alone in their pain or frustration. There are, I would say, positives to being negative, both in terms of how it makes an individual feel and how it makes the people receiving those negative messages feel.

But it would be foolish to assume that merely because negative comments can result in positive outcomes that they actually do result in these outcomes. There are a few answerable questions that are raised: Under what circumstances do negative comments about some experience result in positive outcomes, for the message generator, the message circulator, or the message receiver? Is it just a question of the frequency with which one posts negative posts on social media (the dose that makes the poison) that results in negative, rather than positive, outcomes? At what point does venting become dwelling? Are there certain types of people who require more company in their misery? Are there others who are dragged down by the negativity more easily? Are some people merely imagining the positive outcomes of negative messages (empathy, catharsis)?

This may be a case in which the study of people's use of social media may help us to understand something bigger than social media: the circumstances under which being negative can be a positive.