I have had a tendency since my earliest days on social media where I will get halfway or more through a response, and end up just cancelling it. Sometimes I feel like I’m just being to over the top with snark or otherwise don’t want to be that kind of person, but a lot of the time I’ll decide I just really don’t care enough to finish it. Sometimes I just know it’ll be an argument and I know what the person is going to say, and just have no interest in continuing the discussion. I did it on Reddit, I did it on bulletin boards, I even did it in my teens and twenties on Usenet - and I’ll probably go on doing it for as long as I continue using this medium. I probably do it a bit more than half the time. I know that lemmy benefits from more content and I have had some great discussions, but sometimes it’s just not worth it for me.
How about you? Do you hit publish or cancel more often?
I know how you feel, I’ve had that same problem when I joined lemmy and really had to force myself to comment. But you know, I’ve told myself that in the end it’s more about just saying what comes to mind than worry if you’re really contributing to the conversation.
Even if it’s just agreeing with someone or just saying you like something, I prefer to write it out in a comment instead of clicking on some arrow. I like to think that whoever wrote the comment/post I replied to appreciates a personal response instead of an upvote. I know I do :)