Dislike is used as an inflammatory reaction.
To everyone: CAN WE PLEASE REFER TO THE REACTION PROPERLY, IT IS "DISAGREE" NOT "DISLIKE".
I have to
disagree with you on this. If it were "dislike" I would agree with you but it is specifically "disagree". Have we really gotten to the point where one cannot disagree with another without that being perceived as an emotional/inflammatory response? A "disagree" should be issued and received in its logical sense not an emotional one.
Example Post:
Member A: The iPhone mini sucks, no one wants a smaller phone except loud members of MR
Member B: Tags with a disagree
I cannot speak for every individual but I would not assume that Member B is emot'ing with emotion or trying to be inflammatory, I would assume they just disagree on the topic. Also, should Member B be required to post a response like "I disagree with you, I love my mini and I am not loud at all" or is a simple disagree emoji sufficient?
You can even see the odd member disagree with someone then find all the posts by that same person and spend their dislike budget.
I agree with you here, there are even children on this site that do this with the laughing emoji, attempting ironic use as laughing at you vs laughing with you. I have several such children that follow me around and am sure they will show up soon. As the reaction system on MR is meaningless, so are negative emoji, so if one is a well adjusted adult one shouldn't care about such things.
Reactions in general have always been rather negatively used on the web
I disagree, look around MR and most posts that do not involve some hot button issue are generally likes, or other positive emoji. Even some of the most heated PRSI or SFF threads are generally different sides of a discussion issuing positive reinforcement to their tribe versus issuing negative emoji to the other side, note I say in general because it can and does go off the rails from time to time.
Take this thread for instance, no negative emoji at all but if I were to have used a disagree emoji on your original post its intention would have been to show that I "disagree" and not anything more inflammatory than that and I hope that you would have received it that way but I cannot control the value you personally place on non-supporting reactions. If I were trying to show emotion I would have used an emotional response such as "angry", this is why I would like MR to add the disagree back to user created posts, I don't usually want to present as emotional.
even likes are damaging as you end up with people 'needing' to have their posts, images, or other content 'liked' in order to feel good about themselves.
I agree with you on this point but only in regards to the true "social" media sites like Facebook, Twitter, IG, etc. I have heard there are studies linking depression and suicide in teens to social media as a result of bullying or to your point not receiving enough positive engagement from their profiles and posts. This is of course terrible and perhaps some changes should be forced upon the true social media companies as they have shown no indication that they want to minimize the "social currency" aspect of their platforms for children. Not saying adults cannot fall prey to this as well but I would imagine it would be in far smaller numbers.
Where we may differ is on a tech forum like MR I doubt there are many members that are so delicate that taking a dislike/angry/sad pounding on one of their posts is likely to be too detrimental to their mental state.
Non of these reactions serve any useful purpose
Again I would respectfully disagree. It has been discussed in other threads on the topic that "likes" or positive emoji save our threads from several "+1, I agree, Me too, etc" posts from members that have the same feelings on a topic, this avenue allows members to engage without having to post an identical thought. I feel the exact same way about a "disagree" emoji, it means just that, I disagree with your post and nothing more emotional than that. Others in the thread may have already posted my thoughts on the topic so no need for me to "+1" or "I disagree too"