Ohio shooting

[FoxtArt]

I like this.

I think there are other things, possibly, in play as well that help shape what we're seeing now. Just a rough idea floating around in my head that isn't fully fleshed out, so bare with me. Essentially we, as a species, are having a difficult time adjusting to the internet and how it now allows us to interact and communicate with the entire world. With the internet, anyone and everyone can have a voice. This leads to people thinking that because they can have a voice, that they should have voice. You can see this with how comment sections on videos and news articles and whatever just turn into a cesspool. Everyone is saying something, just to be part of the conversation, regardless of if what they are saying merits any consideration or not.
I think what I'm trying to say is that in combination of what Bailey posted above about people taking an emotional roller coaster ride straight into the darkness, with no real coping mechanisms, this acting out might be an extension of spewing out garbage in a comment section, just to be heard. Of course not for every type of shooting. The guy who shot up his work probably wasn't trying to influence national politics, nor was the guy in Ohio who got denied from a bar. But people like the El Paso shooter who wrote a manifesto and thinks he's got the answers, but if only someone would listen to him, definitely. Which is sad because his manifesto is a mess and just reading it you can tell that he should be washing dishes and not trying to tackle national economic policy.

I would not dare lay the sole blame on anyone thing (well except the person pulling the trigger), but I feel like there is a long list of things that influence and nudge people to do things like this.
- The media churning out garbage click bait articles/stories/pieces, etc to keep up with a 24-hour news cycle.
- Politics that have degraded so far that candidates are taking the social pulse of society to try and win elections like a popularity contest instead of actually ever trying to solve anything.
- The news cycle constantly highlighting how bad everything is to the point that no one feels like the government is capable of solving any problem at all, so people better act on their own.
- The government not being capable of actually solving problems.

To help you flesh out your theory, we are not biologically engineered to communicate non-visually. Normal communication involves the constant sub conscious analyzing of the body language of the person you are talking to in response to each statement. If they start to display indications of hostility, oops, we modify our conversation. If a sudden change in body language is observed, we naturally adapt our conversation. If body language display heightened interest, we keep going. If their eyes are wandering, and they are turned away from us, we realize they are bored. If they display indications of sexual interest, we fuck it all up and they end up walking away.

Okay, some people are slightly better than others at it, but the point is: we are biologically engineered to see the ramifications of our communication.

To top it off, when we are in a situation of face to face communication, we also imply risk: If we piss someone off enough, they are not powerless. They can cry, invoke the hostility of others, or even hit us.

When people are on the internet, it's no different than when they are in a vehicle. They no longer see someone's face, no they no longer see any consequences, they are not connected to their biological subconscious communication system. The boil over and delve into "fuck you" and "you stupid fuckers". They do things they would never do in a face to face context. They get racist, sexist, violent, hostile.

You are right in the internet being a huge contributing factor in peoples loss of social skill and an increase in loneliness, and the above ^^ is the precise reason.

ETA/PS: That subconscious communication system is a part of an advanced empathetic reaction. A lot of people mistake "empathy" for "sympathy", Empathy is merely being able to "feel" what other people "feel", even if you hate them for it. Most of it is under the hood. As people spend less time in face-to-face conversations when they are younger, their empathy is underdeveloped - and this is seen in broad, national surveys that span about three decades - there is a significant decrease in empathy observed in teens since the widespread rise of social media; and an increase in narcissism.

ETA 2: For your reading, referring to the long analysis: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/b...oung-americans