This is how others judge us on the Internet.

When assessing others on the Internet, we are guided by a few clues to decide who is worthwhile.

The popularization of Internet use over the last 15 years has not simply led us to connect more and more to the network. In addition to utilizing the resources to which we have access thanks to this brilliant invention, many people who make regular use of social networks have experienced how their self-esteem has become connected to the public image they give online..

And if there are people who notice how their well-being or discomfort depends in part on what happens on the Internet, it is precisely because we are constantly judging those who are behind it. constantly judging who is behind those Facebook, Instagram or similar profiles. or similar. Even if we don't realize it, we generate a positive or negative emotional response to the self-referential content that others post.

We can choose whether or not to be interested in what others think of us, but the truth is that regardless of that, wherever there is a publication of ours, there will be people valuing us, usually in a not very rational way.

How we judge ourselves through the Internet

Below you can see some samples of the extent to which we tend to judge others based on just a few photos and status updates.

Positivity is valued more highly

It has been found that people who tend to make negative posts, such as social denunciation content or complaints about studies, tend to be less valued. However, too much cheerfulness in status updates and photos generates an artificial generates an artificial feeling that seems to have been created to deceive others.

It should be noted that a person can understand a social network as a space in which to express their stress or raise awareness of others based on criticism, without that saying much about his or her personality.. Similarly, others may want to use Facebook photo albums as a compilation of cheerful images, and that does not say much about them either. However, we ignore this reflection and believe that what is on the Internet is a direct reflection of the personality, leading us to reject or accept that person.

Sensitivity to bragging

We tend to show a special sensitivity to publications that can be interpreted as a display of bragging. In fact, in general, the assessment we make of someone is more positive if the number of publications that talk about personal achievements and qualities is small. is small.

Thus, something as innocent as celebrating that we have won a karate championship makes us be valued worse, even though this is more important to us than much other content we have posted before (music videos, memes, etc.).

Instead, that which has to do with opinions about events outside of oneself, or occurring around oneself, but which are not a direct reflection of one's qualities, is seen in a better light. For example:

Visiting the Sagrada Familia temple in Barcelona. The facade is incredible.

• You might be interested in: "Low self-esteem? When you become your worst enemy".

Why on the Internet are we so hard on valuing others?

When we see hundreds of postings from various people on the Internet, we tend to be guided by much less rational intuitions when deciding who is worthwhile and who is not. This means that we adopt totally biased and irrational ways of thinking without that making us feel strange.

In short, we have a great deal of information about others, but it gives little detail and is therefore of poor quality; thus, our judgment of those people is also quick and lazy, our way of judging these people is also quick and lazy..

How about using the chat more?

Keep in mind that these psychological biases in judging others over the Internet basically occur when there is no interaction: someone posts something and the other person sees it. What if instead of remaining passive, we start conversations? At the end of the day, a chat conversation is much more like a face-to-face interaction.We are used to being more restrained in making judgments about what the other person is like.

Some researchers believe that the solution to this kind of paranoia that plagues many people fearful of causing a bad image on the Internet is simply to talk more, to show how we are on the inside in a context of real-time conversation. In this way, those filters that keep us away from others start to lose prominence; we force ourselves to spend time and some effort to take part in an exchange of phrases, which makes us get involved and think that if we are bothering to do that, it will be because the other person deserves that we do not rush to judgment. Chats can be spaces of fellowship in the individualistic and fragmented reality of the Internet.