Reply To: Sociology & CT

[Thana]

These are interesting findings, and ones that I find both surprising and unsurprising at the same time. As one of the alluded to non-participatory (or not as active as some) NiTes the reasons for my quiet presence boil down to these (in no particular order):
Time - Simply put, I have too many offline commitments that I have to follow through with and one of those commitments includes spending less time online (I can get lost in it by obsessively reading and gathering info, which segues to my next point).
I'm just content to observe - I have a history of just observing forums for months to even years at a time before I actually fully participate. In the meantime, I read posts, gather more information, calibrate and recalibrate my understanding of the material, and get a feel for the atmosphere and its members. This imparts a non-committal but enjoyable experience of the forum. I also don't want to provide ignorant or half-baked posts/texts when in reality those ideas could've been better researched and formulated.
Pace and Thought-Process - I actually prefer forums over chats because they're more conducive to/aligned with my natural thought process. It's funny that you mentioned that some types would write a super long post that took them a week to construct because I operate similarly to that XD. My thought process is slow, intuitive, laborious, and meticulous, one not well suited for fast-paced back-and-forths or chats. It's akin to a story unfolding in real time - each thought, sentence, and paragraph seamlessly weave into each other to form the over-arching idea and to abruptly fragment and break up that flow is disruptive to my natural rhythm. Hence when I do post, my posts are long-winded. But fortunately, I am adapting to the pace of the chats which is for the better.
 
 
P.S. I almost didn't respond to this thread and just regulate myself to observing ;P 😉