Removed by mod

It’s great for your mental state.

Just be aware of any filter bubble you might create. If you block every person that has an opposite perspective, you’ll fall into your own echo chamber.

Echo chamber time

I block individuals pretty freely, and it generally improves my experience online.

The reason I block is because I’ve lived through bullies and a shitty family, and I am familiar with the techniques bad people use to eat up my time/overwhelm me.

These days, I am also secure in myself and my emotional responses in such a way that I no longer feel bad or guilty (as I was conditioned to growing up) when I remove these people from my life. They are not owed my time or eyeballs.

I figure that if they behave in such a way that other people (such as me) decide it’s better to remove them from their life and block them–that’s their fault, not mine.

I also know my intellect well enough to understand that I’m not losing something irreplaceable intellectually if I block. I actually am better at learning and improving myself in a form that is NOT debate, or live, or putting pressure on me in the moment, because stepping away from the immediacy of something gives me the tools and breathing room to actually think.

So folks yapping and fretting about echo chambers forming if you block and curate your experience is weird to me…even pre-internet I went out of my way to learn new things. If you’re in an echo chamber, you chose to be there, it doesn’t happen on its own. And blocking asshats won’t magically put you in an echo chamber unless you’ve chosen to be in one already.

Live debate with unpleasant people who often in this day and age have ulterior motives, including a desire to provoke an emotional response that will hinder one’s thinking ability, is a technique used to manipulate others. By blocking and opting out of such things online, I can keep my temper more easily and use my brain instead.

So yeah. I block freely, whenever I feel like, and I’ve stopped feeling bad about it because I have quite a bit of experience on the internet now, and have seen the patterns in which people engage, and a handy block button is basically the only effective tool to manage it with.

I also block communities, but that’s mostly just so I can browse Lemmy in public without looking like a degenerate with all the porn subs hanging out in the open.

Personally if I find someone very unagreeable I will check their account to see if this is their whole online personality or just one or two posts, everyone has bad days. If it seems like a a person I would rather avoid altogether I will block.

Blocking is great. I truly wish more people would block. We would be able to all have a more enjoyable experience.

I have gone through phases of blocking very vocal idiots, but then as you said I feel at an informational disadvantage.

I’ve gotten recently into tagging people with descriptions of repeated behavior. That way I still know what’s going on, but I know what to expect from them.

I’ve gotten more aggressive with blocks lately. Feels like there’s been a lot more arguing and drama on here lately than usual, and I haven’t been on as much because of it. Blocking at least drowns a lot of that out.

I’m using Boost, so I’ve been using tagging a lot. It’s useful to remind yourself whether someone routinely behaves in a way that you don’t want to interact with.

I’ve probably untagged more people than I’ve blocked at this point. People are complicated, moods change with the weather.

Also helped me to correlate that the majority of my tags were on ml users. I’ve filtered that instance and, can’t lie, using Lemmy is much nicer now.

I think the ability or willingness to have a decent conversation with people who have a different opinion is important for the advancement of ideas and a cornerstone of what we call civilization. I find it so weird to see how people “debate” these days instead of conversing, it’s somehow more about winning than finding the truth of a matter. Watch for example how political discourse has changed over the last few decades, compare discussions from the 70s like Chomsky vs Foucault to the circus of today. People are already largely separated in different platforms, blocking only exacerbates the bubble effect. That being said, to each their own and I hope your life is better for it.

Only disappointing thing is they can still see and respond to my posts, just that I can’t see it. I wish they couldn’t see anything I posted either.

I understand. Lemmy users are divided on that issue because not only can these people see, comment and downvote your post, they can manipulate the situation to their advantage (feel free to use your imagination or search posts about blocking).

FWIW, I hear you loud and clear. Please understand that there are plenty of people in this world who are angry, unfulfilled and can’t/won’t touch grass whose only gratification is to try to make other people miserable. This mental instability coupled with current events is unfortunately unleashed here in Lemmy and you.

Block away and save your sanity. I’m here for the jokes and your memes. If I want to argue, I’ll go to work and get paid. Sadly, you are a volunteer and many people don’t realize that — they seem to think that it’s your job to take their crap. For that, I am truly sorry.

Two of my friends recently blocked .world and had good experiences with users from other instances. Recently, there was negativity in Uplifting News that had to be addressed; a .world mod left because they were burned out; some more drama recurring also at .world instance.

Please take good care of yourself and don’t take &#!+ from any of us!

I personally do not block. I have always hoped to see changes of heart in people I disagree with, and I also have been on much more abrasive communities, lemmy is kept relatively tidy (at least from my instance’s point of view).

I block pretty freely, on all social media. Being both trans and religious means that people on any part of the political spectrum might think I’m subhuman, and I don’t see the point of engaging when that’s the case.

Keep it up. Don’t let FOMO loosen your standards. If people acted like this to you in person, you would avoid them. Do it online as well.

Sadly we interact so much online that the bad behavior of social media is now informing people how to behave IRL.

Been doing this with a warning system. I tag shitty people and block them if I see a person who is tagged acting shitty.

2 years in, no regrets.

I do wish Lemmy would fix the blocking system though. If someone who I’ve blocked responds to me, I don’t see it. Fair enough, but I also don’t see what people who respond to that say. I feel like it should just show the username as [blocked] and the content as [hidden] with an option for me to show that content/username, while keeping the rest of the child content fully visible.