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    Why, oh why do I even look at the Comments section after reading an on-line article? I regret the wasted minutes every time. It doesn’t even matter if the topic is sports, there’s too little of value to compensate for the other, seeming majority, of comments that range from snarky to nasty to, well, just plain dumb. I’m not even factoring in the egregious grammar and spelling errors that further make me wonder if I wasted 40 years of my life trying to teach English.

Apparently I’m not the only one, however. My favorite news magazine, The Week, is considering following the lead of Popular Science in disabling or eliminating their comments section. I should have learned my lesson a few years ago when the one time I posted a comment to an article resulted in someone calling me a “Moron” for suggesting that a failure to compromise had created some bad historical outcomes. I posted a mild response, but to have continued following the thread (if, indeed, there was anything more to it) would have required more time and energy than I cared to invest. It did make me wonder what kind of life those people have who seem to have nothing better to do than “comment-bomb.”

For that reason I also avoid responding to people who think they’re going to influence someone’s opinion on guns or health care or poverty or corporate greed or, well, you get the picture, by posting on Facebook. If people are such true believers that they’re going to advertise their POVs, what can I say that will change their minds? Not much, I’m thinking.

At least most of the people on social media sites have known identities; I do share some kind of connection to my Facebook “friends.” You want to have a face-to-face discussion on some controversial topic, that might be worth my time. Even a respectful disagreement with dueling Facebook posts could possibly be intellectually challenging, if not particularly productive.

The posters in the Comments section, however, are strangers, and generally anonymous strangers with made up identities. Why subject yourself to their insults and diatribes? Wallow in those stagnant, shallow waters if you want, but I have better ways to waste my time.