Can you become autistic from being on Wrong Planet too much?

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So, it's well known that you tend to imitate those who you associate with. If a person has been associating around those who tend to use pedantic/pretentious language, are stand-offish, antisocial and adopts the values of the autistic culture which are sometimes at odds with the neurotypical culture, could someone who was originally neurotypically effectively become more autistic? I.e., can someone who's actually neurotypical act more autistic in real life from being on here too much?

Also, considering the excessive computer use effectively diminishes one's social schools to autistic like levels, that's another way being on Wrong Planet too much might make someone more autistic.

Last edited by swbluto on 24 Oct 2011, 11:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

This is like asking if you read about zebras enough will you become a zebra.

I've been posting here for 2.5 years and it hasn't happened yet. If you go back in my archives, you will see that my posts are pedantic/pretentious to exactly the same degree now that they were when I started. I've been talking and writing like that since I was a kid. It isn't due to WP. The values here are quite similar to the hippie values I was raised with, epitomized by the slogan of the time "let your freak flag fly". I have not effectively become autistic despite coming here so often and for so long.

There has been a change in my day-to-day life. I find words that I picked up on WP popping up in my face-to-face conversations and I have to be careful to control that. Literally nobody else knows what NT means.

I don't think my computer use qualifies as excessive (since the amount of time needed to read the most intriguing threads and post to them is only about 30-50 minutes per day). Few people my age use the computer excessively. Younger people seem (to me) to use computers excessively (which could just be my age bias, since "excessive" is a value judgement) but I have seen no evidence that this "effectively diminishes one's social skills to autistic like levels". The only diminishment I've seen is in spelling, because sometimes the young people forget the actual way to spell a word after texting its' text-speak version so many times. I have seen articles warning that excessive (according to adults) use of social media could theoretically hinder young peoples' ability to make and keep friends offline, but there has been no actual evidence of this.

^^^THIS^^^

Could you take on traits and inflections. Possible.

Could your brain actually rewire and actually become austistic/Aspie? Research suggests it's highly unlikely.


Remember, you're on a website where many members take what you type literally.

Same here. WP will not make me into someone with AS or autistic. But it may bring out traits that are on the spectrum though in me they do not add up anything other than being at the introvert end of introvert while being generally NT. Sorry, not WP brings out the traits but spending lots of time with people with AS does. And no, not to patronise them but because it can be fun to compare & contrast, as it were.

Maybe.

I never stimmed in my life before, as far as I know or remember, unless you count picking at my fingernails (uncontrollably: same result as bitten nails, but I didn't use my teeth, and as soon as I grew just a _little_ bit more nail, as soon as I was at loose ends, I had to pick at it till it was gone).

I've started catching myself rocking in my chair when I've got some anxiety buildup. Besides WP, I've also been reading a lot about autism, and over the months, apparently "acting autistic" has worked its way into my subconscious as being OK. I did see that on television or the movies, generally as "crazy behavior" with the person doing it wearing a strait jacket and locked up in a padded cell, or something similar, so apparently I learned _not_ to do it without ever being told (again, that I can remember)

I go on Facebook all the time and read all my NT cousins and friends social updates, but I haven't become NT.

This is like asking if you associated with zebras enough, you will adopt zebra like behavior and thinking, not whether you'll become a zebra.

Last edited by swbluto on 24 Oct 2011, 11:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

You have a lot of NT like behavior (Notably like, going on Facebook and checking on updates and socializing with friends). How are you so sure you haven't become at least a *little* more neurotypical?

Well swbluto, let me explain a thing or two.
I use my computer excessivily because it's the easiest and most effective way for me to communicatie with others and what's wrong with that.

Do you want to know the absolute truth?. I only talk to my mother and grandmother and some other people that I have known for years and that's about it. My contacts with others are limited to a minimum and I'm not exactly verbal when it comes to dealing with people I hardly know. I keep my mouth tightly shu tin social situations. Even my therapists seem to have trouble interacting with me and I don't give a s**t!

I don't have a job at the moment so I only leave my house when I have to do some shopping or when I want to visit my relatives I live in my own world in my own house and that's fine with me. My interest in the outside world vanished a long time ago. I do come into contact with the world through my tv and I generally don't like what I see. You may think that my lifestyle is pretty sad but at the moment it's the only way for me to exist and I accept that and I don't have a problem with it.

As I have already pointed out: my computer is a great tool for me and my window on the world and that is the case for most people with autism, So point your nasty moralising finger in another direction because most of the people on this forum are for real, they don't think that they are autistic, they simply are and always have been, wether you believe it or not. I still think that I can improve myself and I try to be as positive as I can but that's not always easy.

Oh yeah, it's impossible to become autistic because of the fact that you associate yourself with people who are. In real life we are not the most popular people around and most NT's have a tendancy to not associatie with us at all and vice versa.

Last edited by pokerface on 24 Oct 2011, 12:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No, just have the same few NT traits as I've always had. I actually feel more Aspie because I see all these photos of people with their mates, and I see people write ''had a good time with so-and-so last night''.

WP hasn't made me more Aspie, but it's made me come to terms with it a little better. Probably made me less Aspie if anything because I've learnt to work on certain behaviours by reading tips and stories from other Aspie's experiences.

Your opening question asked if you would BECOME AUTISTIC, not become like an autistic.

Pardon my aspie nature for taking your words precisely as written.

No.

I think one learns a certain style that characterizes the culture. You word the posts accordingly.

I post on other forums and the lingo I use is altered to fit into that culture.

"She's a nice truck -- Runnin' her dry" as some recent expressions in my postings on another board. I just sense the current lingo and adapt to the understanding of how the feel or the view things is perceived.

Some posts on another forum:

Edit: removed

Last edited by Mdyar on 29 Oct 2011, 4:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.

No.

Exactly. I've learned not to post oblique little jokes that depend on using multiple meanings for words. But that doesn't mean I have slowly lost my ability to use that style elsewhere. I like your examples from other forums. "Nil,nada, nothing" is an expression I use a lot offline as well as the equally alliterative "zip, zero, zilch". But I never used either of those in a post (I don't think) until just now.