You are growing in a thumbs-up\/thumbs-down world. Everywhere you look, someone is telling you whether something is “good” or not. And it’s not just movies and books—people have opinions about socks! cat breeds! earlobe shapes! pineapple on pizza! haircuts! superpowers!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OK, you get the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The thing is, the world wasn’t always like this. Before the Internet, people spent more time talking face-to-face, and conversations would have been pretty darn short if people just talked in thumbs-up\/thumbs-down language. What can be fun online is, well, sort of boring IRL<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This sort of thumbs up\/down language is a problem because it’s what we call an “unsubstantiated<\/a> value judgment<\/a>.” (Try saying that<\/em> three times fast!) It’s not very interesting because the person who hears your opinion isn’t going to be able to engage. Consider this conversation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The new Marvel movie is the best ever!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I hated it.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n That’s the end, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what if we remove the value judgments<\/a> and go deeper?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I really liked that chase scene with the hot air balloons—my stomach was doing backflips.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Yeah, that was actually pretty cool. I wish they had done more character development, though. I didn’t feel connected to the characters at all.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n All of a sudden, we have a conversation! The two speakers in the conversation didn’t change their opinions, but they did start to understand why each felt the way they did about the movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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A challenge for you<\/h2>\n\n\n\n