Communication Hypothesis

[woodwardiocom]

A random thought, on which I invite comment:

A person's desire and ability to communicate tends to be inversely proportional to how often they disable comments in their LiveJournal posts.

Comments

[jesshartley.livejournal.com]

So, those of us who never do so are both desirous and able to communicate at least in quantity, if not quality?

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

[waffles hand] Very broadly speaking, yeah.

[beowabbit]

I’d agree if you wrote “A person's desire and ability to communicate on LiveJournal tends to be inversely proportional to how often they disable comments in their LiveJournal posts.” But there may well be lots of people who don’t have time to deal with discussion on LJ because they’re spending too much time communicating effectively in other media.

(Then again, “tends” is awfully hard to argue against credibly.)

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Then again, "tends" is awfully hard to argue against credibly.

Weasel words do allow one a graceful exit from so many faux pas . . .

I did thnk about adding the "on LiveJournal" qualifier, but I'm interested to see if people think there's a broader correlation.

(And, if people don't have time to deal with discussion on LJ, why are they posting to LJ? Are they only posting announcements?)

[(Anonymous)]

I can answer that -- I have a lot of friends who are very active on LJ, so my LJ (and later the feed from my blog) allow these people to keep track of my life.

Of course, I don't disable comments either. I just find the weight of LJ to be fairly oppressive, and I stay here for the handful of people I know and like.

[dlganger.livejournal.com]

I really hate it when my browser logs me out.

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

I usually only see my friends disable comments on posts where they're feeling really sad. Or, at least, those are the times I remember, because those are the posts I get frustrated about not being able to comment on.

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

Heh. I win, then. :-)

[sebastian-tombs.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I am not sure I often post on topics of a nature that people usually would consider disabling comments (if they would consider such a thing). But then, I tend to lead a relatively drama-free life.

Here's a question: Does screening comments have any bearing on this particular hypothesis? Does it indicate stronger or weaker communicating skills, by inviting comments that might otherwise be withheld?

[scholargipsy.livejournal.com]

How about, "A person's ability to communicate meaningfully is inversely proportional to how often they post self-righteously to rpg.net?"

[minkrose]

I think that while that may not be true of all communicable things with X person, it can certainly be true of the subject within the comment-disabled post. Some things are difficult to talk about. I also see a lot of sad/upset posts with comments disabled. Sometimes, there is no right thing to be said or to hear, and I can understand wanting to prevent people from trying.

That said, I can't recall when or if I've ever disabled comments on a post. I'm usually willing to try even if not able to succeed at communication. I've seen other LJs that disable comments on all of the posts - amazing writing but I could never tell the author that (I didn't know them IRL).

[katkt.livejournal.com]

Some things are difficult to talk about

I think that's it exactly.

I don't think there's any broader conclusion to be drawn. People who post about things they aren't actually able/willing to communicate about ... post about things they aren't able/willing to communicate about. There's information about how they handle stress contained in there, but I don't think there's any general lesson about their communication.

In my experience, they post frequently, communicate reasonably about other topics, and communicate fairly effectively IRL, but my sample size is fairly small.

[superfinemind.livejournal.com]

That seems sort of self-evident.

But does it account for people who didn't know the feature existed?

It seems that there are a lot of people who never do, all of whom have variable amounts of desire and ability to communicate, so your hypothesis only describes the subset of people who use the feature.

[crazybone.livejournal.com]

I usually don't disable comments. As for communicating via LJ, I only reply to a post when I feel I have something significant or amusing to say about the post. Regarding posting in general I don't do it all that often and for much the same reasons. Most people I know would probably agree that I'm the same way in face to face communication as well.

[sleepyworm.livejournal.com]

I do desire communication within the LJ realm, and I would say I have an above-average ability to express myself with words, if that's what you mean by "ability to communicate". Also, I rarely disable comments on my posts. So my experience seems to line up with your hypothesis.

But, like some other commenters, I tend to disable comments only when I'm posting something particularly sad or upsetting...something I want my friends to know about, but not something I want to actually discuss with anyone. It is, first and foremost, my journal, and disabling comments is an easy way to make a post feel more like a journal entry and less like a notice on a bulletin board.

[drwex]

I think the trend only works in one direction. To take myself as example, I consider myself a mediocre communicator (in LJ) with occasional dips into just plain bad. But I don't (ever) disable LJ comments.