Online posts function as hard-to-fake signals of readiness to invest verbal energy into arguing for one side of an issue. This gives readers the feeling they won’t lose face if they adopt the post’s opinion, which overlaps with the feeling that the post’s opinion is true. This function sometimes makes posts longer than would be socially optimal.
Online posts function as hard-to-fake signals of readiness to invest verbal energy into arguing for one side of an issue. This gives readers the feeling they won’t lose face if they adopt the post’s opinion, which overlaps with the feeling that the post’s opinion is true. This function sometimes makes posts longer than would be socially optimal.