Conversation Value

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I have just concluded a several years long online social experiment.
I think I have noticed something very peculiar and valuable to this community.

I think I speak for a lot of people here when I say that I judge a person's value in a conversation based on the value of their statements in a conversation. I only want to say constructive and analytical things that might possibly add some meaning to someones life.

The online experiment I have done is to take a group of chatters that changes throughout the day in nationality and social backgrounds, and basically act differently between early and late in the day. During one time I would only make statements that I would appreciate in a conversation. During the other time I would only make jokes and practice improving my humor and not be serious. Halfway through the experiment I switched the communication styles.

The conclusion was that people who witnessed the serious, careful, and valuable factual statements were constantly repulsed and offended, while the people who only witnessed the joking and humor and meaningless chatter were frequently telling me they love me and hanging on my every word. When I switched the styles, people would comment on how I had changed. In the case of switching to humor, they told me that I had developed and matured a lot since they knew me. In the case of the valuable factual statements, people said I was evil and tried many tactics to shun me.

In stage two of the experiment I spent a few months only using one of the two communication styles. The results were predictable based on my previous dual-style experiment. When you say something of value, people dislike you. When you joke and make light of any situation, people love you. The study was done with a cluster of over 500 individuals that alternates predictably throughout the day. The results were the same across a variety of cultures, creeds, races, and other various factors.

Of course there was an average of 3 die-hard friendly types who ignore social interaction and like you because you are online regularly.

In reflection of my own social values, I noticed that when I "tried harder" to make friends, I generally pushed people away. When I didn't care, I was always being surprised by spontaneous friendly comments and nice looks. Finally my experiment is over and I can understand the group of what you might call "normal" people much better, and the great thing about it is that you don't have to try to make friends. Just be around people and don't try to care.

You say people generally did not appreciate truthful and valuable conversation while they did enjoy lighthearted and inconsequential conversation. But we only have your word that the former is, in fact, 'truthful and valuable' and not simply rude and accusatory. say, for example, you consider current events a meaningful topic. If you say, "I really think the economy might be on a turnaround in the next year," that's one thing. But if you say, "George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes in the UN," or "Anyone who thinks Gay Marriage is wrong is an idiot," then you're being confrontational and generally unpleasant, even if someone agrees with you. So I withhold my judgement of your hypothesis until I have further information.

I actually found some similar results. A couple of years ago, I've switched to basically just saying whatever pops up in my mind. I've found that people find my random theories and observations to be quite hilarious, and are often willing to forgive my bluntness and awkwardness in other social aspects.

sacrip, your examples don't qualify under my specific definition of terms. The factual statements I used are analytical based on large amounts of supporting data sets that are filtered for opinion and bias. Of course I'm not stupid enough to say things that are most likely directly opposed to and alienating of half of the population. That would skew the results.

Specifically the sources of data are from various self help websites, encyclopedic data, word definitions, psychology criteria, recipes, scientific theories in various fields including astrophysics, biology, nanotechnology, etc.

Artros, yes that can work pretty well.


What most people think is a meaningful friendship is basically giving your friends the emotional responses they expect based on instinct. What you actually say has less restrictions, and is more often than not forgotten completely. It has nothing to do with actual meaning of facts and statements. If you make them enjoy it, they will like you. Enjoyment is based on a small subset of instinctive criteria which is the foundation of all of this nonsense people call friendship.