What accounts for the increase in misreading on social media?

I think it’s a matter of unrepresentative sampling. There are so many ways you could think the misreading happens more often than it used to, even when that’s not the case. Thus, I’m not inclined to believe that to be the case until I see some reliable numbers on it.

Poor grammar and a decreased familiarity with reading for context.

When people don’t read for pleasure, they don’t hone the ability to correctly asses written speech for tone, much less learn to write that way.

And with that you get a man who thinks his girlfriend is joking when she admits to killing his son via text.

People misunderstand and don’t pay attention to what others are saying in real life.
It passes on to the ‘net.

I agree with @Seek

Increasingly, users seem unable to capture the nuance in well composed posts.

I believe this is why I’m sometimes told to label a statement as sarcastic.

Between wording and context, This should not be necessary.

On a similar note.

Spellcheck and predictive text are wonderful tools, but one must still proof their work before posting.

I’m shocked to see problems with this even from publications that would consider themselves well established, professional and mainstream.

I believe you’ve answered one of your own questions.

. . . the increased prevalence of synchronous online communication (e.g. chat and texting) over asynchronous (e.g., forums and email) means that people are more likely to respond immediately without reading carefully or thinking through their responses?

Since online communication on social media is next to instantaneous people seem to take everything at face value and fail to question further and inform themselves. At least, in many cases. Response time is handled as it would be face to face, so people assume quite a lot.

This also seems to overlap on actual information as well. Post a fake news article about a meteorite coming to hit the Earth and people will just read the headline without clicking on the link to see further information, or post a picture of Einstein with a random quote, and people will assume he said the quote, when as far as is known he never did.

That it’s communication with friends/loved ones or information, this also leads to the spreading of misinformation, which can be dangerous, or at the very least, extremely fuckin asinine.

I agree with context, I mean, imagine if someone was actually laughing so hard their arse fell off & then they rolled on the floor, presumably writhing in agony…“awkward”

It could also be due to predictive text making it past the writer without their noticing. Happens to me all the time, especially when I’m on my cell phone. The stupid thing will not let me correct what I’ve said before I send it. Instead if I want to say anything at all it it forces me to push send and then I get to find out that I said something really asinine. I hate texting, but am forced to use it anyway.

^ What are you using that won’t allow you to check as you input or before sending??

I know for me a lot of it is grammar and abbreviated words.

Welcome to social media, a borderless and lawless environment in which unfettered freedom to say or hear anything reigns. It is the ultimate slippery slope to incivility.

The increase in unsupervised children online.

@YARNLADY This issue does not concern youth only, by far.

Unfortunately, you are correct. However, there is a noticeable increase during school holitdays.

Yeah. But that kind of stuff is expected of kids and therefore forgivable. Not adults.

Thanks for your answers. @Seek I hadn’t heard about that incident, so I looked it up to see what you were talking about. I wish I hadn’t done that. :(

(Speaking of grammar, maybe I’ll start another thread to ask why so many people can’t form the conditional perfect correctly any more.
Right: “If I had known how horrible that story was, I wouldn’t have read it.”
Wrong: “if I would’ve known how horrible that story was, I wouldn’t have read it.”)

@SecondHandStoke Sometimes when I text it gets stuck and it won’t let me scroll up to review what I’m trying to say before I hit send. Or it won’t let me re-read a previous text in the middle of writing out a message.

If I could go back to the old days when a phone wasn’t my constant companion, i’d be a happy camper.

Misunderstanding abounds in real life too. The difference with online communication is that in real life, good communicators repeat the same idea several times, phrased differently; they check on the others’ understanding regularly, etc. Good communication implies dedicated efforts to reduce misunderstanding.

Then, have you considered that some of your online interlocutors could be pretending to misunderstand you? Happens more online than in the flesh, for some reason. People think they can get away with it more easily maybe.1a