How to Stop Being Your Own Worst Troll

Photo by DDP on Unsplash

We’ve all witnessed social media trolls. They swoop in when they sense weakness or just for the sport of enjoying your misery. They pick fights with you and your followers, criticize, mock, attack, and put down. They are social media’s playground bullies. Their sole purpose is to annoy their victims as much as possible, either for laughs or because they, well… have mental health problems and/or empty, dull lives.

More often than not, they succeed.

They succeed because of your negativity bias.

Negativity bias is not your fault. It’s the way your brain is wired. In my article, How Not to be a Tiger’s Lunch, I alluded to negativity bias without calling it by name. Negativity bias (or negativity effect) describes our brains’ tendencies to fixate on the negative. When we were cavepeople, negativity often protected us. Scientists argue that negativity bias is an evolutionary adaptation that allowed early humans to protect themselves from danger. Chasing positivity, as many do today, would have landed our early ancestors in a tiger’s clutches, as its lunch. Fear and negativity helped us survive. While I am not touting toxic positivity, perhaps a topic for a later article, I do believe that the more we understand about how brains work, the better equipped we are to take charge of the neuroplasticity (ability to rewire our brains) we all have available.

How Trolls Manipulate Your Negativity Bias

When I presented my first TEDx talk, How a Brain Injury Made Me Smarter, in 2013, I was not prepared for negative comments on YouTube. I’d worked as a writer my whole life. Writing is easier than speaking for me. I can edit. No one can see my face when they read my writing. Public speaking terrified me. I knew my message would not resonate with everyone, but I had no idea how cruel some people would be.

There are over 1500 likes for my talk, which has garnered over 100,000 views on YouTube. Additionally, my talk was voted one of the top TED talks about brain injury. It landed me countless keynotes and led me on a wonderful professional path I never dreamed of. There are currently 71 dislikes of my talk on YouTube and 256 comments. Most of the comments are supportive, but there are a few that are downright nasty, clearly…