I am James Swannigan. Today we are speaking to Debbie, who is a wealth manager in Danville, California. She's a married 53-year-old with two step children. She's an active ultra-runner. And as of today, she's no longer drinking alcohol. She's alcohol-free, in fact. Debbie, how many days alcohol-free are you? Oh, goodness gracious. I guess it's gotta be 97, 98. Something like that, 98, 99. Congratulations. I'm popping my hands there. Well done. What's the longest you've gone without drinking in your adult life prior to this? Oh, probably like 28 days. I love how it's like, I love how you've got the exact number. Oh, probably like 28 days. I don't know. It was like 20 or 40. It was 28. No, no. I think I did it dry January once. Right. Yeah. So how does it feel to be 90-something days alcohol-free if you compare it to when you were drinking? And I'll get clear on what your drinking habits were, but how does it feel now? How can you compare those two scenarios? I've just freed up so much mental space before like every, a good part of every morning was about how I was going to not drink today.   What were some of those decisions that you were making the previous nights? Well, I mean, I think one of the reasons it took me so long is because it seemed like it should be so easy to quit drinking two glasses of wine a night, two to three. Sometimes I'd quit for maybe a week or two, and then I'd have like a half a glass of wine. And then the next couple days would be a glass of wine and then one and a half and then two. And then before I knew it, I was up to two and a half, sometimes like three glasses of wine on the weekends for sure, more than that, probably a bottle of wine on a Saturday and a bottle of wine on a Sunday. And just pouring all of that attractively packaged poison down my throat. So, you know, I never missed a day at work. I never missed a workout. I'm the kind of person that does what I say I'm going to do. But I just was so mad at myself that I couldn't do this one thing. Was it red wine or wine you were drinking? I usually read. What was your drink of choice? Oh, it was cheap because I always knew. I would never go to wineries. I wasn't any wine clubs.  I'm like, no, no, you picked the wine. I don't know anything about wine. So, you know, it's not like I was even this connoisseur or this person that paired wine and food or whatever. It was totally about the buzz. I knew it was about the buzz. And I just I couldn't accept that about me. So tell us a little bit about your life, if you will, that in hindsight you've identified was creating this need or this habit of having the two to three glasses of wine each night or maybe a bottle on the weekend. Just tell us a little bit about your nine to five, your Monday to Friday, your weekends and why you identified you were choosing alcohol. Yeah, I think I let my stress level get up during the day. It was acceptable to not deal with the stress and maybe to whip things up into things that were bigger than they really were. And so by the time I was driving home, all I was doing was looking forward to those couple of glasses of wine to sort of come down. So I had that kind of thing going on like no matter what, I could find something about the day that was stressful. It was just sort of this automatic thing to find that those couple of stressful things that felt hectic about the day that therefore needed to be quelled with the wine. And then and then also just coming home sometimes maybe if I didn't have a bad day, but there was something that my husband said that I didn't like or some way he was thinking about something that I just didn't agree with, you know, I would just like shut down whatever that feeling was in that discomfort, that discomfort of just being in a relationship and having a different way of looking at things in the world and neither one of us was right or wrong. It was just that I didn't like the way he was thinking about it. So and then, you know, then just social things like just the thought that wow, any kind of social thing is better with wine. Like I can't do it without the wine. So until now. So what were those social things? What were they usually? Were they girls get together? Were they work related networking business events? You own part of a wealth management company in Danville and California? Were there was there entertaining clients? Was there network? A lot of conferences and of course at the conferences people are always buying, you know, the open bar and a lot of sponsored dinners. So like quarterly there'd be something like that. There'd be, you know, a few business dinners now and again, colleagues, other business partners outside of our firm that were trying to reciprocate and treat us to nice dinners. And so there's sort of this whole concept of well it's free, you know, I have to take advantage of it because it's free alcohol. So that was that was mainly it. I mean, from time to time we would go to dinner with friends, but it was more just that business context. Did you ever try to politely decline others invitations to drink? No, no. It was really, I always thought in my mind, I was like, well, geez, if I could just drink when I'm social, but just not drink at home, you know, Monday through like, like to me it was just, I couldn't accept the fact that I needed to drink Monday through Friday when I was home alone. I thought if, because I don't socialize so much, they don't do so many business events that that would have been bad. I wouldn't have classified it for me to be bad. I mean, like I said, maybe four conferences a year, maybe four or five dinners a year. So it wasn't a ton. So I always thought, well, if I, if I would just only drink when I was in social activities, then this drinking wouldn't be a problem. But that's not how I was drinking. I was drinking every time I was home alone or with my husband, I was always drinking. Yeah, every time you were alone or home with your husband, you were drinking. Yeah. And again, in addition to the social times. Right. Right. And I just thought, why do I have to be drinking when I'm home? I'm in my home. I should be, you know, I should be fine here. Right. Why can I, why can't I just deal with my own life? I have a beautiful life. I have a wonderful life. And yet that's, that's what I was choosing to do. I mean, we'd be packing for a vacation and I'd be like, ooh, let's have a drink while we're packing for vacation. You know, and, and I was rarely ever hungover. But I just knew it wasn't what I wanted to be doing. It just wasn't me. So when you would come home from work each day or during COVID, were you working from home or an office? I was working from home. Okay. So you were home a lot more. Actually, you were home probably almost all of the time, I guess during COVID. Yes. So let's just go back pre COVID. After work, you would drive home, you'd open the door, you'd walk in, how long would it take you to pull yourself a glass of wine? That was the first thing I did. I would open that door. I would be in the front door. I mean, and I'd be pouring that wine and I would have like three or four big gulps, like gulps, like not even sips.  And I'd have a couple of gulps of wine and then I'd go upstairs and I'd put on my sweats and sort of change into my after work clothes. But I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even give it enough space. And why do you think you were doing that? I just wanted that buzz. I wanted that happy feeling in my head. So does that imply that you didn't have a happy feeling in your head as you returned home after work each day? Sometimes it was fine. Sometimes not. Sometimes I was stressed about something that I just sort of wanted to take the edge off. But a lot of times that wasn't there. It was just like, Oh, well, if this is good, then alcohol can make it better. So how long do you think it took before you realized that alcohol cannot make it better? That maybe it makes it temporarily better in the moment. But it's an illusionary better, isn't it? It's temporary and it's illusionary. So when did you first have that aha moment? Oh, probably like three or four years ago. Yeah. I mean, at that time, my husband and I, well, I said I was going to AA. Well, I was seeing a therapist at the time and I said, I'm sure I must be an alcoholic because I can't stop. It's only two or three glasses, but I can't stop. And she said, well, if you think you're an alcoholic, maybe you should try AA. And I went to 90 meetings in 90 days and there's great people in the rooms, fantastic people. But I really committed to it.   I didn't grow up in a family that drank. So I knew there was nothing genetic there. There was no, it's not like I saw this habit growing up. I just knew it was something about me that I just needed to change. So that's interesting. You did 90 days at AA. Did you actually say my name's Debbie and I'm an alcoholic? Yes. That was very painful. It was very painful. I got a sponsor. I worked through the steps and I was just like, well, maybe if I do this, I won't want to drink anymore. Again, great, great people have nothing bad to say about it, but it just wasn't for me. And how long did you last? Without drinking or how long did I go to AA? Without drinking. When you were in AA, you said you did 90 days. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that's when I made like the 28 days. And then I would like, oh, I'll just have a sip. I'll just, you know. Yeah. So yeah. Oh, maybe I got a 30-day trip maybe. But I think I might have even cheated. I'm not sure. Did you feel like you were depriving yourself of something during those days or nights at AA? Why in hindsight do you feel like it didn't result in you being alcohol free? That's a good question. I think there was just no way it wasn't sustainable to think about going to meetings for the rest of my life, to like have to get in my car and go to a meeting and sit in a room. That just wasn't sustainable. So I knew I needed the support, but it just wasn't sustainable. But the tools that I found in this program, where I have support every day, every day a little bit of sunshine of support in this program, I'm the kind of person that thrives in a team environment. And when I got in this program, it was like instantly the team was around me of other like-minded people that were going through struggles, but also very positively looking at things as they were changing in their life. That's the kind of environment that I knew I needed to be in. So when you said like-minded people, just describe the types of folks that you met inside of the Project 90 program? Just other people around my age, maybe 10 years younger, to 15 to 20 years older. So let me back up to AA. I think the other thing was that I didn't identify with the people that had sort of lost everything. And I would hear these just tremendous stories of and it was just sort of depressing. And I'm like, oh geez, I'm not that bad. So I kind of kept comparing myself to them going, well, I'm not that bad. What am I doing here? I kind of doubted that I belonged there. I guess that's the difference. As with the Project 90, it was like, okay, these are all just people who just want something better in their life, who whether, I mean, maybe some of them drank more than me or maybe a little less, I don't know, but we all just sort of seemed to share this same feeling of, I know I can do better and I'm not like so down in the gutter that I can't climb out. So just what I would call just successful, highly functioning, normal people. Yeah. And you said that it was very positive. So do you think that if you were to compare it to AA or something else, would that be, is that a fair comparison that one of them seems incredibly positive, almost aspirational, the other one not as much? Is there, is that a fair comparison?  It's hard, but yet I was hearing other people talk about their journey who were ahead of me with more days. And they, they, I'm like, oh, I can't, you know, I know I just got to hang in there and I can get to where they are. Or they might have been people who maybe had had a quick slip, but then got back and and talked about, okay, well, I had to slip. This is what happened. This is what I'm going to do next. But that aspirational aspect of it was, was really, was really big to me. You know, I think about my running group. And when I joined the running group, they said, if you just do what we do, you'll be able to run all these really cool ultramarathon events. And that's, it inspires me. And I knew I wasn't there yet, but I knew all I had to do was do what they were doing and I would get there. And that's how, and I instantly recognize that about Project 90. You mentioned before we started this that you're no longer feeling sick and tired or feeling sick and tired. Explain that. I was just sick and tired of trying to find a solution. I was sick and tired of not living up to what I said I was going to do. I was sick and tired of waking up in the middle of the night with my head spinning with anxiety. Sick and tired of this routine that my husband and I would get into around the drinking every night. And so none of those things happen now or not very often. What's the current reality? Oh, so, yeah, no, I mean, I sleep great. I know I've lived up to my word. It's funny, when the pandemic started, I said, I don't know how, but by the time this pandemic is over, I'm going to have quit drinking. I just knew it. I just said this is my chance. I don't know why. This has got to be done by the time the pandemic is over. Wow. And when you say quit drinking, does that mean quit drinking for 90 days? Does that mean quit drinking for six months? Does it mean quit drinking for a while and then do moderation, or does it mean quit drinking? Right now, it's just not drinking now. I just have no reason to drink now.  I'm not do anything. So there's nothing, there's no reason that I can see to be drinking. So if I was drinking now, it would be back to the same Monday through Friday, getting home from work and having to drink a wine just for no reason at all. So that said, I think if I did start drinking again, I would start drinking again. Because I've done that so many times, and I'm able to acknowledge that. If I just said, oh, well, just on this vacation, I'm just going to drink, then I'm sure I would get back from that vacation and just keep drinking. I'm sure I would get back from that vacation and just say, well, okay, well, it's a vacation plus one day. It's a vacation plus two days or whatever. And then it also sets up in my mind the idea that somehow there's some benefit to it. And there's really, there's no benefit. I mean, I had to do a lot of work on finding the new benefits and realizing what the new benefits are. It's not just giving up that happy feeling in my head. It's getting all these other really happy feelings and having to be sure I work on those every day. And what are some of those other feelings, benefits? Yeah, just being really, really present with people, really paying attention to people, really taking in the beauty of a situation. For example, when we had a couple ski vacations in the last 90 days, and there was a point in that ski vacation as we're going down the hill or I'm thinking, oh, I can't wait till I press ski and we sit in the bar and have some drinks. And I went, no, I don't do that anymore. So I just, I had to think, okay, well, what's beautiful right now? What's beautiful and wonderful right now? And so just being more present in every situation because that, that was what I was missing. And has there been feedback that you've got from either your husband or colleagues or anyone else as to this version of you as opposed to the one 90-something days earlier?  And he would drink even more than I was drinking. And he actually has stopped drinking.  And so I think there's been some days where, you know, he'll, he'll drink on those days when I'm not home. But it's not like he's sneaking around or anything. It's just his decision that that's what he wants to do. And I certainly didn't tell him that he had to or it's just sort of like, he just has followed along. So he's, you know, said, you know, yeah, it's nice to see you not, not drinking and kind of getting a little bit stumbly around family, you know, for having family over or something. I can't say that really anybody else has really noticed or said anything. I mean, I've told a couple of people in the running group and they've said, way to go.  But yeah, people have certainly supported my journey for sure. How do you feel about sharing with people that you're alcohol free? Oh, I love it. I just love it. Because it just feels like a really cool thing to do. In this, you know, in our society that's so geared that way, I certainly don't want to throw it in anybody's face for sure. I really make it just about, you know, me and me achieving something that was really cool for me. But yeah, I don't have no shame or anything about sharing it. So what were some of the key distinctions that you learned inside of the program? What was something that was surprising or something that you learned that you didn't know previously or a perception or a mindset? What was something that felt really interesting and valuable for you? So I'm going to answer your question a little indirectly. So I had read several books on how to stop drinking, like four or five of them. And they all had sort of reading those books and seeing the common threads in all of those books. I had the brain knowledge to how to do it, but it wasn't until I got into this program where I then saw people putting all of those concepts into action. See, that's what I needed. I needed action and I needed accountability to have somebody to be accountable as part of a group to actually do them. So for example, I knew that I knew from reading the various books that stopping drinking was not depriving myself and I knew that I really had to believe that. I knew I had to believe I was not depriving myself, but rather I was moving to something better. And I couldn't get there in my brain. Until I joined the program and saw how other people showed me that they were not depriving themselves, that was one of the pieces that removed what they call cognitive dissonance, where you're trying to hold on to two thoughts that are opposing at the same time. So seeing how, again, I knew that I needed to get to the point where I could have fun in a social situation without alcohol, but I kind of needed to see other people do it. Does that kind of answer your question? Yeah, I always share with people you can go onto YouTube and type in how to quit drinking and you can watch 5000 videos on that. You can go to the library, get a whole lot of books. You can pay $29 for books and get it sent out to you and you can read it. And you'll still not quit drinking. That was me. Yep. Yeah, I think, well, not think. I know why my methodology seems to work as effectively as it seems to have for you. And by that, I mean within Project 90. And I break it down into five pillars and let me know if you think there's another pillar or which one you found to be most valuable for you, Debbie. But the five pillars are coaching, accountability, community, fun, and skin in the game. Or another way of saying skin in the game is an investment in yourself, financial investment. So two questions. First one is, is there anything else there that you think that was valuable that I didn't mention in those five pillars? No, I think that. And then of those five pillars, which did you find to be the most motivational or the most valuable for you, the most effective possibly? It was the accountability combined with the community. And I thought that because of the fact that I found your program through a Facebook ad and then kind of Googled you a little bit and I was signing up based on the internet, I kind of thought I would be like a a voyeur or just a watcher of the program. But when I signed up, I was, I was directly contacted by the coaches. Like that first night, it was like, Debbie, how you doing? What's going on? How you feeling? I'm like, Oh, the internet is calling me.  How you doing?  Somebody cares. And so that like really pulled me into the community. So from there, I'm like, Okay, I'm in it now. Like, I'm not, like I'm not anonymous, right? I think part of me thought, Well, maybe I could kind of do this anonymously and kind of sit back and just sort of watch the whole thing go by and then it will soak in. And no, I was in it. People knew my name. People said, Welcome, Debbie. Oh my God, darn it. They know I'm here. Now I got to do this stuff. This is not what I signed up for. I signed up to be a passive participant. That's right. That's right. You know, so anyways, yeah, so is that accountability in that community for sure? Just out of curiosity for myself, when you saw the Facebook ad and you clicked, how long was it from when you clicked on the Facebook ad that you saw when you actually booked a call, spoke to one of my coaches and then ultimately enrolled in project 90? I think it was about two months. And it's funny because I think I had seen the ad and it spoke to me. And then I thought, I got to look that up. And then it was like a month later or something. I'm like, James, what? What? James, who? What was his name? And so I started googling James 90. Thankfully, I knew it was James and I knew it was 90 and I just kept googling until I found it. And what you ultimately enrolled, what almost led to you talking yourself out of it, do you think? Because there's a moment, isn't there? You book a call with one of my coaches, you have a chat, you have an exploratory call, we get clear on what it is that you want to achieve over the 90 days. We invite you to join us if we think you'll be a fit. And then you can either choose to enroll or not choose to enroll. You chose to enroll. But what were you thinking before you chose to enroll?  I thought this could be a waste of money because I could blow it. What if it doesn't work? What if it doesn't work? And it was the money kind of, but it was more just like the thought of potentially like if this didn't work and it doesn't work, it was like then I was hopeless. So it was almost like I didn't want something to validate again that I was hopeless. I get that. That's the feeling that many people have shared with me actually. It's a very common pattern I guess or it's a pattern. It's that fear that, wow, if I invest my time and energy and resources into this and I still fail, wow, I really am broken. I get it. What pushed you over the edge to say yes? Well, I figured I was broken if I didn't. Damned if I didn't and damned if I did, but at least this had a sliver of a chance. And as soon as I got into it and I really understood what it was, then I realized it was more than a sliver of a chance. I realized that if I just did what I was told to do that I would be able to, if I just showed up honestly, candidly, raw, and just subjected myself to the process, I was like, oh, I think this could work. Yeah, good on you. As interesting as well, you didn't quite know what you were getting yourself into. You were just, you were thinking, oh yeah, it's a program that's going to help me quit drinking. You didn't really know the specifics of how that was going to happen. You just, you knew enough, trusted enough to say I'll figure it out once I'm in there, but I'm going for the result here. Yeah, I think I aligned with the idea. I think what I did know is that I would be communicating with other successful individuals so that it just felt like it was going to be a parallel. Well, I so acknowledge you for taking the leap of faith. This feels like you're standing on top of a cliff and there are rocks down below and you just got to trust that if you step off the safety net will appear even if you can't see the safety net. So my experience of you is that you just stepped off and trusted that the safety net would appear and by all accounts it did. Yes, it did. That's a great description of it. That's exactly what happened. Well, congratulations. It would be totally remiss of me if I did not ask you about your ultra running. I would love to know more. I'm sure our listeners would as well. Tell us a little bit about that. What do you actually do? How far do you run? What does it entail? What's your record? What's the plans for the future? Well, let's see. I just started two years ago. This year, I plan to run a 50-mile trail run. Yes, that is all at one time. There's no sleeping involved. And then I'll run. So that's in May. In August, I'll do god-willing. I'll do a 62-mile, which is 100K. I'll do a 100K trail run in the Tahoe area. And then again, god-willing, at the end of October, I'll do a 100-mile trail run. And so last year, I did a 50 and I did a 62-mile or 100K at Zion National Park. So it involves just putting on your shoes, starting really early and just running all day. Incredible. It's fun. Out in nature on the trails, like my girlfriend says, she goes, it's just a really long day. So you just have not too much expectations. And my goal is to get over to the UTMB, the Ultra Tour de Mont Blanc, which is where you go around Mont Blanc and go through Italy, France, and Switzerland. Your European clients will know that more than a few US people, but that's the goal. And Western States, which is in the Tahoe area, famous 100-mile race. What I'm gunning for, we'll see. Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing a little bit about that. Thanks for asking. Yeah, well, Debbie, congratulations. Thank you. Debbie, your wealth manager in Danville, California, 53, married with two stepchildren, active ultra-runner, no longer sick and tired of being sick and tired, no longer frustrated with herself, and feeling terrific by all accounts. Is that right? And James, thank you for pulling this together and having just the right formula for this right group of people. I owe you a lot. And I mean that. I could tear up because I'm so proud. So thank you for doing what you did. You're so very welcome, Debbie. And thank you for supporting others as well. I say this often when I interview graduating clients, which I think is fantastic, that I get to say what I'm about to say, which is thank you so much for supporting other people because it's not just about you being supported and getting support. It's about you being vulnerable and sharing what's going on with you and giving support to other members. And I witnessed you doing that on those micro polos. You're always supporting people and calling people out in a really supportive way. And that speaks volumes of you. So thank you. Yep. And if anybody wants to contact me directly, you can put them in touch. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. Well, Debbie, congratulations again, and onwards and upwards. Sounds good. Thanks for listening to the alcohol free lifestyle podcast. I want to load you up with some free stuff right now. So if you want to go to jameswanick.com slash guide, I will send you my quit alcohol guide, which has helped six figure entrepreneurs and top professionals produce or quit drinking. You can also text the word quit guide to the number 44222. If you're in the US, of course, it doesn't really work anywhere outside of the US. But if you're in the US on your mobile phone and you'd like that guide, text the word quit guide to the number 44222. Or you can go to jameswanick.com slash guide. If you'd like to schedule a free 15 minute call with one of my top coaches, just an exploratory call to see if or how we can help you, then you can go to jameswanick.com slash schedule. Or you can text the word project 90 to the number 44222. If you're listening in the US on a mobile phone, that's jameswanick.com slash schedule. Or you can text the word project 90, that's one word project 90 to the number 44222. Feel free to send me a direct message over on my Instagram account, which is at jameswanick. You can also watch video episodes of this podcast and a series of other educational videos on my YouTube channel, which is James Swanick One. Or you can direct message me on Facebook at jameswanickofficial. And finally, a request. Would you please now write a short review of the podcast inside of the Apple podcast app on your phone or on iTunes on your desktop computer? Would you please give the show five stars and write a quick one or two sentence review? This will help the show get in front of even more listeners, potentially transforming someone's life. You can rate and review the show inside of your Apple podcast app on your phone or over on iTunes on your desktop. Thank you so much and I'll catch you next time.


Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, wa sallatu wa sallamu ala as-shif al-anbiya wal-mursaleen Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallim al-ameen. We begin in the name of Allah Subh'ana wa Ta'ala, the most compassionate, the most merciful. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. It's a great blessing to be able to pray Isha'ah in congregation in the Bashar. It's a great blessing to be able to pray behind Qada Umar and to listen to the recitation of the Qur'an. It's a great blessing to join together with other Muslims in a time of difficulty. And it's a great blessing even to recognize that it's a blessing. Alhamdulillah. And sometimes when we're dealing with very difficult things, it may seem inappropriate to mention blessings, but it's a good reminder to the believers. And it's a way that we can strengthen one another. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, Al-Mu'minina wa al-Mu'minat ba'aluhum awliya wa ba'af. The believing men and the believing women are supporters of one another. One of the ways that we can support each other is by consoling one another. So when we're witnessing what's happening right now in Mzazza, and we all know that it didn't start a week ago or two weeks ago, but our brothers and sisters there have been suffering occupation and brutality and the stealing of their land and ethnic cleansing now for over 75 years. So it didn't start two weeks ago, but it's read such a level of horror that the whole world is watching in disbelief. And everyone with iman in their heart watches this and we feel pain. We find it difficult to go about our daily lives. We can't just eat ice cream and drink cappuccinos and go to work. All the things that we normally do, we can't just go along with our daily lives when we know that our brothers and sisters are suffering unspeakable horrors. And that, unfortunately, the government that we pay our taxes to is supporting that horror. So we have to do a lot of things. There's a lot of dimensions to this Dean of ours, the outward and the inward. So there are many actions that we need to take outwardly as a way of an excuse to Allah, even if there's no tangible outcome from it, which inshallah there will be, but even if there's not as an excuse to Allah, so we can say we didn't turn a blind eye to the suffering of our brothers and sisters. We tried. We did something. We called our politicians. Even they didn't answer. We called. We left the voicemail. We sent an email. We protested. We donated to relief organizations. We donated to American Muslims from Palestine and care and other groups that are doing the important work on this issue. So that's part of it. And we should keep doing that, inshallah, and we should encourage one another to do that. But we also have to strengthen ourselves inwardly. And we also have to console one another and strengthen one another in this regard. So that's what I'm going to do, inshallah, a little bit here. And I'll also mention, Alhamdulillah, great appreciation for Brother Muneed and the MCC team. There's going to be multiple events in the next week about Palestine. The one that I'm most excited about is on Monday evening, we're going to have Dr. Hatim Bizian speaking here at 7 p.m. So I know it's a Monday evening, not the most convenient time, but I hope as many I'll be there, inshallah, and I hope to see as many of you as possible. And obviously, Dr. Hatim is a worldwide expert on this issue and I think will benefit a lot, learn from him in terms of the history and the politics and also framing it in terms of us as believing Muslims, inshallah. So I'm really very much looking forward to that. But the topic for what I'm going to speak about is going to be different. So I'm going to mention just some things that I was reflecting on myself that gave me some solace and I hope it can do the same for you, inshallah. So the first has to do with this hadith by the Prophet, peace be upon him, Qadir Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallamah, Salah al-Mu'mina fi tarahumihim wa tawaddihim wa ta'al-tufihim, Kamathari al-Jasadi al-Isstaka al-Udwan, Tada'a lahusa il-Jasadihi al-Sahri wal-Humma. Allah's Messenger, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallamah, said, The parable of the believers in their affection, mercy, and compassion for one another is that of a body. When any limb aches, the whole body reacts with sleeplessness and fever. So why can this hadith give us some solace in a time like this? Because the Prophet, peace be upon him, is describing the believers. He's describing the believers. So if we feel the pain of our brothers and sisters, and that's even a little bit, inshallah that's a sign of iman. That's a sign that we really believe what Allah SWT says, which is they are our brothers and sisters. They are our brothers and sisters in iman. And when they are in pain, we are also in pain. And not just our brothers and sisters in al-Qasda. Obviously, we feel, and I've seen some of the horrors coming out of the oppression of our Muslim brothers and sisters in India by the Modi regime, and these people who hate Muslims and openly show their hatred for Islam. Or our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan who are affected by the earthquake, or our brothers and sisters in Iraq, we're all over the Muslim world. So when we see those things and it hurts us, that's a sign, inshallah, of iman. So we can take some solace in that, because there's nothing more important than iman. That's, iman is the criteria for entering jinnah. Iman, and then righteous actions. And jinnah is the most important thing. The acceptance of Allah is the most important thing. So, you know, one of the things that there's a lot of lessons to take from that hadith, but that's one that sticks out to me is that, inshallah, if you've been disturbed by this, if you're horrified by this, it's a sign that our hearts are alive, Alhamdulillah. There's some part of our heart that's alive, that's connected to Allah and connected to the love of the Ummah of Rasulullah. The second hadith that I wanted to mention, Qadr Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallamah, in Hajj al-wada'a, ala inna ahram al-ayyami yawmikum haadah, ala wa inna ahramal shukhuri shahrukum haadah, ala wa inna ahramal baladi baladukum haadah, ala wa inna dima'ukum wa amwalukum, alaykum haramun kya hurmati yawmikum haadah, fi shahrikum haadah, fi baladi kum haadah, ala halbalagdu qalu na'am, qalu allahum mashhad. The Messenger of Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, has said during the farewell pilgrimage. So the context in this hadith is really incredible because the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, is obviously Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, who created time and space and the universe of everything in existence, of all of the creations of Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, including his aarush, including his kursi, the greatest of the creations of Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, is Muhammad alayhi wa sallam, our beloved Messenger. And that man who is the greatest of all of the creations of Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, is saying in the farewell hedge in the last year of his life, on the most holy day, in the most holy place, in the most holy month, he's mentioning this hadith. He's mentioning this point, which he says, he asked the people, and these are rhetorical questions that he asked them, and he says, is not the most sacred of your days. This day, you know what I'm saying? It's not the most sacred of your months, this month, Dhul-Hijjah, is not the most sacred of your lands, this land.  So the blood and the wealth of the believers are sacred, are priceless in the eyes of Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. So sometimes it hurts us because we see that the world doesn't value the blood of the Muslims. But even if they don't value it, the one who created the whole world values it. He says that it's priceless, it's sacred. It's as sacred as the most sacred place on the most sacred day in the most sacred month. So sometimes, you know, we need to be reminded, we need to read the Quran, we need to listen to the words of our Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, to be reminded of the ultimate reality because what we see doesn't match that. So this also can bring some solace to the believers to know that regardless of what the people say and do, even if nobody sees that value, which they do, Alhamdulillah, we have Muslims all over the world who see that value. Even if nobody sees it, Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says it and he mentions it and he's telling us. He's telling us that Allah, that he loves these people.  And they're saying, Alhamdulillah, and they're making dua for us. So the people there, they have shown their Eman and they are strong in their Eman and we ask that they're an inspiration for us. So may Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, make us among the people of Eman. And the last point that I'll mention or related to that point actually, I'll mention one ayah of Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says, Never say that those who are martyred in the cause of Allah are dead. In fact, they are alive, but you do not perceive it. So again and again, Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is telling us that you may see something but there's a deeper reality that we don't perceive. And so those people who are dying there, they are shuhadaa. May Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, reunite us with them in Jannah. And the last point that I'll mention is something that I think a lot of us can relate to, which is that one of the ways that you can console somebody who's suffering a very difficult loss is to remind each other that it can always be worse. It's always possible to be worse. So Abdullah ibn Abbas said that in every worldly affliction, there's at least three blessings. The first one is that it could have been worse. I never think that it can't be worse because it can be worse. So the first blessing is it could be worse. And the second blessing is that it happened in our dunya and not in our deen. So it matters of dunya, so if you lost wealth or health or anything else, at least it wasn't your iman. And iman is the most important thing. And the third one is that it was in this life and not in the akhirah. Because this life is temporary and it ends. But if there's an affliction in the akhirah, that's eternal. So, Alhamdulillah, that hadith that meant that statement of Ibn Abbas with La'am who reminded me that the greatest affliction to ever come upon the Ummah of Rasulullah A.S. is the death of Muhammad A.S. He's the one who, he's the reason we have an Ummah. He's the reason we know La ilaha illallah. And he passed away. And because that was such a great affliction, it could only be dealt with by the best people after the Prophet Bashar al-Sahada, La ilaha illallah. And the way they responded to the death of the Prophet A.S. in their courage, in their steadfastness, in their commitment to Allah and his messenger even after his death, in their fidelity to him, they are an example for us. Because if they hadn't reacted to that catastrophe, with courage and with resilience, none of us would be Muslim. None of us would know the Qur'an. None of us would know the hadith. All of that comes to us, to the Sahabah of La'am. So, witnessing or reminding ourselves of greater tribulations that the Muslims have faced in the past and have overcome can also strengthen us and remind us that if we hold fast to the rope of Allah, if we are steadfast in our commitment to Allah and his messenger and we are true in our commitment to our brothers and sisters, we can, insha'Allah, make this tribulation a source of benefit for us on Yawm al-Tiyanah, that we can say, we loved our brothers and sisters and we did what we could. Whatever we could do, we did it. We made dua, we prayed, we fasted, we donated, we protested, we called. Whatever we could do, we did it. And at least in that sense, we have an excuse in front of Allah, Az-Zawaja. So, I already took up too much of your time. Jazakum Allah khair. And... Jazakum Allah khair. JazakAllah khair, Dr. Asad. I just want to read this ayah and Dr. Sahab would read English, insha'Allah. I know everyone gets hurt and everyone is sad. Okay? So, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala said in the Qur'an, wa la tahinu wa la tahzalu wa an tumul a'launa in kuntul mu'miniya. Which means? So, do not weaken and do not grieve and you will be superior if you are true believers. Alhamdulillah, this is a word from Allah because anything happened, Allah allowed that to happen. So, I know it's very hard to see the children, but Allah is more... Insha'Allah. So, why that's happened? The next ayah, insha'Allah, is going to explain, insha'Allah. It says, If a wound should touch you, there has already touched the opposing people a wound similar to it. And these days of varying conditions, we alternate them among the people so that Allah may make evident those who believe and may take to Himself from among you martyrs. And Allah does not like the wrongdoers. Martyrs, Shuhadah, we are mad, sad, and they are happy. And it goes on, alhamdulillah. So, every one of us wishes to enter a Jannah and the Jannah is in, you know, you pay price for it. And this is what the ayah talks about. Waliyumahis Allahul Izzat wa yamhaqal ka'a Tum an tadkhulul jannatah walamma ya'alamillahul ladina ja'adhu meekum wa ya'alama al-sabiri. And that Allah may purify the believers and destroy the disbelievers. Or do you think that you will enter paradise while Allah has not yet made evident those of you who fight in His cause and made evident those who are steadfast? So, inshaAllah, I know, human, we get sad, we get mad, but Allah allows this to happen as, you know, the test for us to see what we can do as Dr. Saad. Alhamdulillah, we should do what we can do. We should call and help and make dua, inshaAllah. And we have to wake up and know Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, he's a great. He can save things. When there is no more Muslims to save, he can do it by himself.  When elephants came to destroy Ka'bah, there was no believers at that time to, you know, to defend the Ka'bah. Allah defend the Ka'bah by himself. He stopped the elephant and he sent his army, birds, tyrants, ababis, to defend. But now Allah wants, there are many Muslims. They need to do something, they need to talk about it. We are against killing any innocent people, no matter where they are. But unfortunately, what we do, before the war, only man and man, now women and children are getting killed for no reason. Children are scared. We see some videos, Subhanallah. I don't know how this world is. You know, we can't even sleep these days. So, let's recite, yes, inshaAllah, in our prayer tonight. What intention that Allah will bring, inshaAllah. Victory to our brothers in Gaza, Palestine, and also to make attention, Allah SWT will free the Aqsa Mosque, inshaAllah. Make attention, we can go there and pray Turk, inshaAllah. What he can, ayaa, monuda, we loha, baina, nas. Yes, it's our time now, we see in what's happening for more than 75 years, inshaAllah, it's not going to continue. Nothing will continue. Al-Dholm will never continue. Allah SWT will bring victory. But we have to wake up and realize that we should do more toward Allah SWT. We should worship Allah SWT more, unlove him, unlove each other to be united, inshaAllah, as one body and as a doctor said, inshaAllah, one body Muslim. So, we should do that. Starting here from this mosque, inshaAllah. We should feel like we are one body. And, Alhamdulillah, there is very good share in Muslims. They are helping with their money, they are helping with... I think that's great, inshaAllah. Let's continue to do that, love each other and get to each other like one body, inshaAllah. Jazapullah khair. InshaAllah, let's do some four rakats, you know. Just let's relax, don't be in hurry. Make sure you have ozo. You need to go to the bathroom, go now. So, it's a little bit long. It's not going to take more than 35 minutes for it. InshaAllah, let's be with Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. Let's think more, we are in insala, which is we live the dunya, we live everything. We just, inshaAllah, focus on Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. And ask Him from all your hearts, your body, that to bring, inshaAllah, the victory to all Muslims anywhere in the world. Make it easier. As doctor said, a lot of things happen to Muslims you know what happened in Libya, in Morocco, and in Afghanistan now, in the other countries, Palestine, Yemen, Iraq, Syria. So, let's ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. It's never too late, let's ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah ta'ala, Allah ta'ala, and more. I was watching this kid, he was playing something, just came to my mind. And he was hitting this rack many, many, many times. He doesn't get destroyed until like, many times, he said subhanAllah. We make du'a one time, we want the du'a to be answered. Look this guy how many times he was eating. That's it. So it looks like we need more, inshaAllah. More du'a, okay? So we need more than Arab du'a, inshaAllah. Then Allah will answer. Because Allah said, He will answer your du'a, inshaAllah. Zatmallah. I'm sorry to keep you here, inshaAllah. Salatu jami'a, inshaAllah. Qaretaib, come here please. There's any Hafid also. Look, this one is good, this is good. Staqimu atadilu, please make the line straight. Al-Ratim, mustaqim, saddaa, fa aghshaynaum, fa umlaa yubasiroon. Wa sawad niqra wa khashiyar rahman abil ghaib. Fabashirahubi, wa ajrim hi il-mawta. Wa kulla shay'in ahsaynaaw fi. Abwarib la wumma tala al-asha. Zazla bi thali abasharun shay'in rahman min shay'in in'aa takdiboon. La narju manirukum ma aakum aakum. Bal aakusul madinati rajulu hi yashaa. Wa la ya qawmit tabi'u al-mursali. Yas'alukum aajra bi wa ilay'i turja'u. Takd min rahmanun ni shafaatum shay'u wa la yumtidun. In'a kum fa sma'u ila dkhul il-jadin as-sirata al-mustaqeem. Sira as-sama'a hata wa ahidatun. Fa izahum khabi ahasratan ala al-aibaa. Ma ati'im mir rasul ila kanubi yas tahz'u. Wa ja'alna fi aajan wa min anfusim. Yunas lahumil naslahumil na haara fa izahum muzlimun. Wa shamsu tadjereel mustaqaril lahaa. Lalika taqadil as-sirata aadaka al-arjunil qadeem. La shamsu yamil saabqun wa kullun fi falaki yasbah. Wa aayatul laum anfulkil mash'un. Wa khalaqana laumlihi ma yarkabun. Wa inna sh'annu ghruqun fa la sarikh laum walahu rahmatan. Wa mata'an ilaheen. Wa idha qeel laum uttakum a bayna aideen. Fa kum la'anlakum tur hamoon. Wa ma ati'im min aayat. Min aayat rabbihim ila kanu anhab wa aridin. Wa idha qeel laum anfikum ima razakakum. Allah khala al-ladeena kafaru. Wa nuta'imu man law yashaa Allahu at'ama. In an'atum imubin. Wa yakul wa adu'in kuntum sadiqin. Ma yalla sayhatan wahidatan. T'akhudum wa hum yakhissimun. La sayhatan wahidatan. T'akhudum wa hum yakhissimun. Fa la yas-tati'oon tausiyatun. Wa la ila ahleem yarji'oon. Wa nufiqafis sarin al-ajda siloon. Qalu ya wa ilana ma min marqadina. Hada ma wa adar rahman wa sadaqal mursaloon. In kanat illa sayhatan wahidatan. Fa idha hum jamia mohbaroon. Fa liyawm la tublam nafsun shay'aa. Wa la tujzaun illa ma kuntum ta'maloon. Wa la huwa kbar. Sami'Allahu liman hamidah. As-salah din al-sharat al-mustaqeem. Sharat al-ladina an'am maghdoobi an'afi shughul ibn faqih. Wa azwajum fi d-raheem. Wa mta'zul yawma ayyuha al-mujrim. Abud al-shaytaan mustaqeem. Afalam ta'qulu ta'qeem. Islahu hal yawma bi maa kuntum takfiruim wa tukalimun. Wa tashadu arjunum sibun. Walawna shay'in fa astabaq al-sirata fa anna yubasiruim. Fa mas taqaaoom adiyan wa la yarji'oom. Kisoo fi al-khamidah. Immaniki yawka nasta'een. Ihdina al-sirata al-mustaqeem wa masyarib wa afa la yashkuru. Al-sirahum yastaqii'oom al-sirahum. Wahum lahum jum halakanaahum min l-lutfah. Min la khasimum na matalaan wa nasiyahalqah. Walawna shaa'a min al-shajar al-akhbar naraan. Fa idha yakhalqa al-samaa bi qadir. Bi qaa balaa wa huwa al-khalaad as-shay'an aayih. Fa subhanal adiyy bi yadiyy malakutu kulli shay'in wa ilayhi to makbar. As-salamu alaykum wa abud wa iyaykin asta'een. Ihdina al-sirata al-mustaqeem wa sirata al-ladina an'am. Illaa maa shaa'a Allahum al-jahra wa maa yahfaa. Wa nuyassirka lilyusra. Yadzakkar maa yahshaa. Wa yatajannabuha al-ashqaa. Al-adiyy aslan nara al-kubra. Thumma wa la yahyaa. Qad aflah man tazakka wa dhakkar asma rabbi. Fa sualla. Bal tu'afirun al-hayat al-dumiyaa. Wa al-akhirat khairu wa abaqaa. Al-suhufi al-suhuf ibraheem wa musaq. Al-hamida. Wa kbar. Wa kbar. Wa kbar. Allah wa kbar. Al-hamdu lillahi. Al-Rahman al-Raheem. Maliki yawm al-deen. Iyaka na'bud wa iyaka nasta'een. Dina al-sirata al-mustaqeem. Siraata al-ladina an'am ta'al. Lakum deen ka nasta'een. Iyaka nasta'een. Siraata al-mustaqeem. Allah al-samad. Lamyalid wa lamyulad. Wa lam yakullahu kufu wa an'ahad. Qul a'udh bi-rabbil falaqa. Min sharrima khalaqa. Wa min sharri ghasiqin idha waqab. Wa min sharrin na'fathati fil aqad. Wa min sharri hasidin idha hasad. Qul a'udh bi-rabbin nasi malikin. Nasi inahi innaas. Min sharril wa swasil khannaas. Fal adi wa swisufi sudor innaas. Min al-jinn. Allahumma salli salli wa sallim. Nashkuru kawla. Al-kabar, al-kabar. As-salā, al-raḥmatu l-lā. Bismillāhi r-Raḥmā salli wa sallim. Wa barik ala sayyidinā wa habibinā muḥammadinā. Allahumma hdina fi man ha'dayt. Wa āfina fi man āfayyiklana fi man. Allahumma qinā wa srif'annā bi-raḥmatu kasharra wa su'a ma qadayt. Fa innaqt nastaghfiruqa Allahumma min jami'a ibn lūbi wa l-khatāyā. Nastaghfiruqa l-astaghfiruqa l-lā gani wa n'ahlu l-fūqa. Hamd hatta ta'rghā wa laka'l-hamdīt wa laka'l-hamdū ba'ad ar-rīqā. Ma laka'l-hamdū bil'īmān wa laka'l-hamdū bil'islam. Laka'l-hamdū kulluh wa laka'l-shukr kulluh. Wa ilayka yurja'u al-amr kulluh. Laka'l-hamdū bi-jami'a il-mahāmid. Subḥāna kala nuhsītana an-n'alayk. Anta kama an-nayti'a al-n'afsik. Allahumma yā wāsil al-munqatīn. Awsil lā an-n'sālih li'qarribu lā ilayk. Allahumma la tukhzina yawm al-hārḍi alayk. Allah al-hārḍi alayk. Wa la tukhzahna gadan bayna yadayk. Wa la bayna halkik. Allahumma n'as-tawdi an-n'sīrā. Allahumma n'as-tawdi an-n'sīrā. Allahumma khaffif an yas-sūdūrana. Wāsūdūrahum wa tashfi'a amr. Wa an-sūrum wa la tan-sūrā. Is tajib du'abatika yā lamin. Allahumma jamshabna al-musribīn. Fī jami'a al-arḍiyā rabbalā'a. Rabbana Ātina fī al-dunyā Ḥasana. Wa fī al-ākhirāt Ḥasana tawwā al-murḥibīn. Wa min sifqidimā il-āminīn. Allahumma n'attā'addi alā ahadim min khanqika ajma'īn. Yā hayy yā qayyūn yā dhal jalaam wa la izzat illa tīlā tū'ālamīn. Allahumma al-limnā dīlā ummar-zūqnā umma ibn kullā ʿakta'nā fā tajā wa l-ahsītā nā'an alik. Lā ilāha illā'an wa sallillā umma wa sallim wa bārik'ā lā sayyidina wa Ḥabībina ummad. Wa sallillā umma wa sallim wa bārik'ā lāhi wa ʿālih. Wa l-hamdu lillāhi rabbil ʿālil.


Hello everyone, it's good to see you here today, that even though there was a bit of snow today that you still made it and came all the way here, that's really great. My name is Hannah van Den Bosch, I'm a program maker and creator for Studium Generale. We organize all kinds of events like this one on events and on topics that matter. So now to today's topic, online haters and why internet discussions escalate. I think maybe you know this when you go to a comment section of a YouTube video or on Twitter or maybe a news article. It can get a bit rough there in the comment section. Sometimes you see a lot of fighting, lots of swearing as well, but why is that? Why do discussions online tend to escalate more quickly than when you meet someone in person? It's an interesting question I think. Someone who can tell us more about this is Carla Rose. She is an assistant professor at the Department of Communication Rights here at Tilburg University and she has a PhD in social psychology. Her other research and expertise is focused on online discussions and also the behavior in interaction partners. So please give a big applause for Carla Rose. So yes I will just start by saying that this topic of online discussions was the topic of my PhD research which I conducted in Groningen in the north of the Netherlands and which I recently completed in September so it's quite fresh research and I'm currently also still working on developing this further so if you're interested let me know to maybe discuss further and today I will talk to you about why do online discussions tend to escalate more easily than face-to-face discussions and my talk will be quite scientific because I understood that you are mostly students here at the university or somewhere else at the university so also when something is not clear please let me know. You can also just raise your hand during my talk and I can try to elaborate a little bit more or explain something when something is unclear so feel free to also raise your hand during the presentation. So let's start so as we've already said multiple times now we see that discussions seem to be more prone to escalate in misunderstanding and conflict when they are conducted via online media and mostly textual media as compared to when people discuss face-to-face and this raises two interrelated questions so first of all why does this happen? What is causing this online escalation and secondly building on this when we learn what can explain this online escalation maybe we can also learn how to solve it or prevent it and according to these two questions my talk will also be separated into blocks so the first part will be about why does online escalate so our research about that and secondly how we can maybe prevent or reduce this online escalation but first I want to learn your ideas about why online discussions escalate. No direct consequences okay people can wear a mask and are able to share their frustrations with less risk of long-lasting tension so that's probably what this anonymity is causing so no accountability consequence of your actions are not direct you don't see the reaction of your comment to the other person so maybe it's less hurtful problems on others yeah okay so I see a lot of yeah not real context anonymity people not feeling accountable people not maybe feeling emotional connections maybe feeling that they can do whatever they want because they are anonymous so thank you for this input so I think I will just continue to put the rest of the talk so thank you for your input so this is nice because it also ties into one of the common explanations that we often hear for online escalation I have two so I will start with the other one oh no I will start with this one yeah that's true so this is tying into what you also mentioned so it's often thought that because people are often anonymous in many online discussion places that they feel that they can say whatever they want without any consequences for their impression management so they feel they can start to call names or say offensive language without any consequences and this is formalized in the online disinhibition effect so it's also often written about in a literature and second of all it is often assumed that people when they are expressing themselves in text are less clear because they cannot use their body language like gesturing or smiling so no facial expressions as well and this will then lead to more misunderstandings and this can maybe escalate into conflict and this is also visible in a literature so we hear it people in popular opinions but also in a literature in the media richness theory but then yeah when we look at this these sort of explanations and then literature more broadly we can summarize this as as follows so it is often assumed that the medium characteristics so text-based for example will change people's psychology and therefore this will change their behavior so in the example of the disinhibition effect so it is often assumed that when people are anonymous they become less concerned with being positively evaluated by others or be less concerned with others in general and therefore they will start to act differently so they will do whatever they want whatever they feel like and this can result in this inhibited behavior and maybe take on a toxic form when there's this controversial discussion going on so often this line of reasoning is assumed but we propose that maybe it can also be the other way around so we assume that when people go online they might not necessarily change psychologically speaking and like maybe they don't become disinhibited but we thought that what does change when you are communicating online is also your behavior so people's behavior is limited maybe online and this can have social psychological consequences and I will explain more about this later but we first need to know we first need to look at behavior because we saw that discussions when they are held online tend to escalate more easily than when they are held offline right so what might be informative is to look at what people do actually in offline conversations to see how they there manage their disagreements without escalation because when we see behaviors that people do offline we can also maybe think that of see that certain of those behaviors are not possible online which might then explain this escalation so how do people deal with disagreements face to face and there's two important behaviors distinguished here so first of all responsiveness so this is defined as agreed to which interaction partners provide each other with instant feedback so for example you might notice it yourself as well when you are having a discussion with somebody and this you want to show that you are listening to this person you start to nod or say mm-hmm or yes so you're responding to the other person in essence and in this way you show that you are listening and engaged in a conversation and also interested in what they want to say and maybe also show some kind of understanding that you see what where they are going and secondly what people often do when they have a controversial discussion they tend to express this their disagreements in a very tentative manner so they instead of being very direct people start to use a lot of hesitations hedges and qualifiers so they will say like I sort of agree with you but I also not totally agree with you maybe because on the other hand right and like very fake just a lot of words without much content so in this way they show that they are maybe still a bit uncertain about their opinion and can also still maybe be convinced of another opinion which leaves room for different opinions to be brought up in a discussion and secondly they also show it is ambiguity and tentativeness that they don't want to offend the other person so they want to maintain good social relationships and because this ambiguity might still be a little bit ambiguous to you I also included an example of this so this is an example of a real face-to-face comment made by one of the participants in one of our studies so the opinion is not that clear and I also remarked all the expressions that I saw that indicated this yes this doubt and ambiguity so not really a little bit so qualifying a lot and also saying a lot maybe and also and say an um so all those little words and expressions that show this ambiguity and people do this really a lot so when you when I listen to the recordings of the face-to-face discussions it seems very natural but when you write it down on text you see just how much people do it and then it seems quite strange actually um but yeah it has a function so when we come back to those two behaviors is responsiveness and ambiguity we termed them diplomatic behaviors because these behaviors enable people to have a discussion about a difficult topic on which they disagree maybe without damaging their relationship so they can be diplomatic in this way and then this makes us wonder because when these behaviors are so important to maintain this good discussion face-to-face maybe people are limited in these behaviors online and this can then explain why online might escalate so that is what we proposed not very coincidentally um so we proposed that um now again you see the model that we proposed right so first the medium changes behavior which changes psychology so we proposed that um two of the characteristics that differentiate online from face-to-face discussions will limit people's ability to be diplomatic to be responsive and to be ambiguous so first of all many online media are asynchronous so responses occur with long delays or people are maybe also entering messages at the same time by which it becomes like cross talking a little bit um and this then reduces responsiveness and second of all a lot of online media are text-based so people are expressing their opinions only in text and this will probably make the expression less ambiguous people might be more likely to say I disagree rather than this slight filling example that we just saw that's that's a lot of typing work that people don't do that and then because responsiveness and ambiguity are so important in face-to-face discussions to maintain this sense of agreement and good social relationships we thought that this lack of responsiveness and lack of ambiguity in online discussions will explain why people experience less agreement and less harmony so a worse relationship in essence and then as a sort of an underlying process for this we thought this might be related to experiences of feeling ignored in the online conversation because your partners are not responding to you and second of all also because maybe people think that others are disinhibited and not being concerned with them because they are not responding to them and also expressing themselves very clearly which might come across as very opinionated and not very socially concerned so this is what we expected and we tested this in a couple of studies two of which had this how do we say design so here we had students come into the lab in small groups of three or four and discuss about controversial topics like the refugee crisis or so and they were unacquainted so they didn't know each other before which is quite important when you want to assess relationships evaluation etc and they had discussions of both via text-based online chats and face-to-face and in the second study we also had a confederate come into the lab an actress and that was also participating in this discussion without the participants knowing so there were just one of them was actually with me and she was pretending to be a quite a right-wing student with a quite a strong opinion so and the other students were mostly left-wing so we tried to get a little bit more of yeah controversy and disagreement in this sense and I will also present the results of the second study shortly but in both conversations we then or in both studies we then looked very closely at behavior so what do people do and how do they express themselves and we also asked them about their experiences of this conversation and about their affiliations of each other in questionnaires yeah so onto the results first of all for for the behavior the first look we were interested in is that we indeed saw in line with what we expected that people were less responsive in the chat conversations and in the face-to-face conversations so there was more of this cross-talking and people were not responding to each other that much as they did face-to-face and we also saw that the online chat messages were way less ambiguous face-to-face messages so people express themselves with way less hesitations and hedges and qualifiers than in the face-to-face comments and what is interesting as well is that we didn't encounter any sign of disinhibited behavior so we didn't see people calling names or being aggressive which is maybe not very surprising because it were just students having a conversation lab for study points or so so they were probably motivated to keep a nice conversation but indeed we saw no disinhibited behavior so in line with what we expected we see that indeed online messages are less responsive so people in this discussion are less responsive to each other and also there's less ambiguity in their messages so how will people experience this behavior was the second question so what is the psychological change so here we saw that when they engaged in a chat conversation people felt more ignored than in a face-to-face conversation and also that they perceived each other as disinhibited more disinhibited than in the face-to-face conversations and this last thing is extra interesting because we just saw that most yeah so there was no approval of this inhibited behavior in the content of the conversations but still people thought their partners were more disinhibited than in the face-to-face conversations and also they didn't consider themselves to be disinhibited online so this is quite interesting apparently something happens within these discussions that makes people think that their partners are disinhibited while they are actually not or while they think they are not and while while they are also not behaving in this way so that is also supporting our expectations that people will feel more ignored in these online discussions than in the face-to-face discussions and also perceive each other as disinhibited and lastly we also looked at how this affects people's sense of agreement and social relationships so harmony and we also saw that people felt less agreement in the chats than in a face-to-face conversation also less harmony so they experienced less identification between each other after the chat conversations and for the agreement it's actually interesting that we also looked at when we looked at the actual opinions of interaction partners we didn't see that they were more disagreeing with each other so when we measured their private opinions on the discussion statement these were not more different than in the face-to-face discussion so there was not actually more disagreement in the chats but still people perceived more disagreement in the chats than in the face-to-face conversations but in general we find support for our model that there's less agreement and less harmony experience online so and yeah because we expected that these behaviors this less responsiveness and less ambiguity will yeah lead to or be related to this perceived ignoring and disinhibition etc we also looked at the correlations between these concepts and these were in line with expectations in that we just see that people experience so while they do not actually disagree more they do experience more disagreement in the chat conversations because they express themselves less responsiveness less responsively and less ambiguously and this less responsiveness and less ambiguity leads to feeling ignored and disinhibited so there's in a way these behavior so this lack of these diplomatic behavior seems to lead to all kinds of misperceptions and misattributions so people while they are not this inhibited they think that their partners are disinhibited because they are just expressing themselves so clearly and not very responsiveness responsively and also while they are not actually disagreeing more they experience this disagreement because they are having this discussion in which everybody is expressing themselves so clearly sorry opinions so clearly and so little responsively so in in effect we see that the medium actually changes behavior but people seem to attribute this behavior change to each other's intentions instead and that's going to have consequences so this brings me to the the conclusion slide of the first part so the first question was why does online seem to escalate more easily than offline conversations so first of all we saw that it's often expected that it is due to online messages being ambiguous or fake unclear and and or that this was due to people being disinhibited online because they are anonymous anyway but we found that also the opposite can be the case so we we saw that when we look actually at behavior we see that online comments are actually more clear than face-to-face comments and that this clarity can lead to misperceptions of disinhibition in others and and make people think they disagree more so we see that the medium seems to make people less able to be diplomatic but that people misattribute this lack of diplomacy to each others yeah sort of asocial motivations so is this clear until now so what do you think makes the difference whether the only expression is too clear or too vague do you think it's it depends on the context of the discussion for example when a discussion is about for example refugee crisis do you think when people express themselves too clearly instead of getting into these ambiguous expressions that's that's more enhanced face-to-face do you think it's easier in this context easier in the online context or easier in the context of the topic or in the online context yeah now so we saw that or yeah I think and we also saw that in the online discussions it's more difficult to be ambiguous you could do it you could also type um and maybe and or so but yeah it's not just not what people do so in that sense it's more difficult do you understand or is it asking your question as well or my question was actually about the context okay yes for for example or for example covid yeah whether covid is real or when whether people are too clear in for example uh stating data from previous research from previous research about covid yeah and other people still doubting yeah yeah that's a very good point the context in general is of course very important here because where we are looking at here uh is uh at controversial topics discussions about controversial topics because when you um so in that in that sense then ambiguity is nice because then it leaves more room to have different opinions uh and disagree with each other in a harmonious way but when you are having a discussion or a conversation about something about which you completely agree then it would be preferable to say I completely agree in a very clear manner because when you would then say I maybe sort of agree then it makes it probably less convincing that you actually agree so it really depends on what you're discussing and here we are looking at yeah controversial topics so in that way it's really important indeed the context yeah thank you so um but yeah we looked at why online escalation happens but then this can bring us to uh how we might be able to maybe prevent or reduce online escalation that would be nice right so maybe we can use all this knowledge that we gathered until now and try to maybe uh make online a better place so we thought based on our research to try to increase these diplomatic behaviors in the online conversation so maybe this will help to make them more harmonious so maybe we can we can find a way to increase crease ambiguity and increase responsiveness in textual chats and this we did in a quite of a creative way by transcribing face-to-face and online discussions that we collected in the previous study we took these conversations and we put them all in the format of a textual chat so we had half of the conversations were actually were already already original textual chats so we remained them in the same manner but we also took the face-to-face conversations and put them in the format of a textual chat so we transcribed them and also gave usernames so as you can see here as well so this is actually an original face-to-face conversation that that we made appear as if it is an online chat conversation and we did this in order to try to increase the ambiguity and increase the responsiveness because we saw in the face-to-face conversations that there is more responsiveness and ambiguity so we yeah in a way we inserted ambiguity and responsiveness in these textual chats but we also had the original textual chats to compare right and then we had a group of uninformed observers to evaluate these discussions so the online original online discussions and the original face-to-face discussions and these people thought these were all original chat discussions all original online conversations and we asked them to say to see to what extent they saw these diplomatic behaviors to what extent they thought these were responsive and ambiguous and we also asked them to what extent they thought these people in these conversations were yeah having a good relationship and being in agreement with this order and that gave the following results so in line with what we would expect based on the previous we saw that the more responsive these observers thought that the chatters were the more they thought these chatters were having agreement being in agreement and having good social relationships so that's in line with what we would expect but contrary to expectations so completely other way around was the effect of ambiguity so we saw that the more ambiguous the observers thought that the chatters were the less agreement and the less social harmony they observed there to be in this chat context so this complete this is the complete opposite of what we found before before we saw in the face-to-face context that ambiguity helped to make the conversation more harmonious and agreeing but in this chat context it seems that maybe this ambiguity is perceived as a bit yeah weird or unfitting and maybe when we think back to this previous slide with this long comment that was original face-to-face you can also maybe recognize why it might not have worked because this ambiguity can also just seem very unnatural in this textual format so maybe that was going on so we can see or conclude that so responsiveness might work but this face-to-face ambiguity might be a bit weird online and that makes me thought for yeah maybe we can find another way to make online more ambiguous in a way that is more fitting to the online medium to the textual medium so instead of inserting this face-to-face ambiguity with um and maybe and or so maybe we can find something that is more natural online um so then when we think back about the functions of ambiguity I was talking about that it can increase perceptions that people are yeah still doubting their opinion that they are not not certain yet so which leaves room for more opinions to exist and secondly also that it allows people to to show that they are trying to take the other person into account that they don't want to offend the other person and then I was thinking that maybe another way to do this is simple as this maybe expressing your opinion as an opinion can also accomplish this as compared to expressing your opinion as effect because when we looked at the online discussions a lot of people were just um presenting their opinion as if it was effect like that is not true that's not the case while in the face-to-face conversations there were more of those statements of I think and in my opinion etc so I thought maybe this very minimal manipulation can also work and this is very uh preliminary preliminary data so difficult word um so uh keep silent about this it still needs to be replicated but I'm doing that now so in this study um which is really recent uh we had participants read fake news articles from New Pantanal that's a online news site a website thing where people can also discuss about the news article in the comment section below it um so we made fake news articles with fake discussion sections underneath them and we had participants evaluate these discussions and we had two conditions so in one condition the participants read the discussion section where all the discussing people for all the discussions were using words like I think and in my opinion etc that was one condition I think in the opinion as opinion condition and the opinion as fact condition all these words were gone so there was no uh in my opinion or uh according to my thoughts or so so that was all just gone um and then we asked them whether they thought these people were having uh agreement where they were being in agreement and whether they were having a good relationship and also whether they would themselves feel yeah prone to also participate in this discussion um and I have two uh examples of the stimuli we use for both conditions so maybe you can tell me which one is which the first one that's the opinion as opinion so uh there we included those statements in in my opinion and I've heard enough uh uh I always think so it's very uh sort of personal so it's just my experience and my opinion and here it's just gone so the comment is also a little bit shorter that's a limitation of course but still the difference there's no anymore uh no other differences so this is the only difference um so and then to the results uh so we saw uh that this manipulation was effective so um we see that when people read a comment section where everybody expresses their opinion as if as if it is effect so without statements like I think they perceive less agreement between the interaction partners and also less harmony in this discussion um and that's interesting because as you saw the only difference between these two conditions was these little sentences of I think and in my opinion and also as a consequence of of this perceiving this agreement um and harmony people felt also more likely to join when they read the discussion that was uh where everybody expressed their opinion as an opinion so it also seemed to create a more of a yeah a pleasant space to also participate in the discussion um yeah so that brings me to the conclusion also of the second part of the lecture so we first looked at yeah why can we why why why uh does online escalate more easily than face-to-face um and so we saw that that was due to uh lacking responsiveness and lacking ambiguity so these diplomatic behaviors which can lead to misperceptions of uh disinhibition and disagreement and then we looked in the second part at how we might improve online discussions based on this knowledge so we saw that by inserting responsiveness from a face-to-face conversation in a text chat that might help to make it seem more uh more harmonious and nice um but inserting uh ambiguity of the face-to-face type uh was not very effective that was a bit weird but then expressing one's opinion as an opinion seems to be a viable alternative for this um and because you're here also maybe to to maybe get some uh uh things tips to to go home right to also maybe improve your own uh online life uh I also included some uh take home tips for how to maybe behave in uh online discussions next time you engage uh so how can we improve uh online discussions and first of all I think it's very important uh that you think before you you act of course it's always important but especially here because we saw that there can be a lot of misunderstandings between people so maybe uh the the person you meet online and that seems so aggressive and anti-social maybe this person uh is not uh intending to behave in this way but is just limited in their behavior by the medium um and then secondly yeah always try to be responsive when you react to a online message so try to acknowledge the previous uh post that you say like ah yes but or so that you make a connection to to a previous statement um and lastly uh yeah maybe express your opinion as an opinion rather than as a fixed fact might also help so that was uh my presentation and these are my their collaborators my promoters so thank you are there any questions yes then please raise your hand if you have a question you have a question I was wondering to what extent the format or the platform where the discussion takes place has influence on um the tone of voice and the expressions that you just told about and do you do you uh sorry can I ask some more do you have some expectations about this what's can happen what might matter for example on reddit uh texts seem to be more um longer or so yeah more elaborate and on discord where there is a certain community people can have short texts or maybe on facebook short comments or preferred over long comments did you see anything on that or um yeah we didn't study this uh but I can imagine that when you're limited in the text you can use it becomes even more clear so that might lead to even more escalation so I know on twitter you have to be very short so maybe that can contribute I'm not sure but it is funny because we also we did look at reddit comments but then just at reddit comments and comparing it to others um but there we saw especially that people didn't really react to each other so there was um maybe somebody started to talk about COVID and then also that um their their mother was in the hospital or so and then somebody else reacted to that by asking by by talking about the hospital or so like oh yeah this hospital is shit or something like that so they just seem to be taking uh elements from each other's messages to react to so to take the other person's comment as an excuse to say what they wanted to say anyway so this can also maybe make people feel very ignored and yeah not really hurt so yeah that's interesting as well but thank you for your question all right and the others I see one in the back just a second hi um so I have I actually have two questions but my first would be um so in your research did you um kind of like explore different um places on the internet and how they differ per levels of what I would say toxicity because I've noticed that the way that for instance to bring it on myself that I interact on twitter is probably a lot more different than I would interact on say reddit or another social media platform and so I then begin to think that maybe some places kind of harbor a particular kind of behavior where you're like okay the area they're like the you're on twitter so therefore you're more combative for instance yeah and so like I was just wondering if you've looked into different um places yeah it's a good question um yeah we also didn't study this uh but this um it is known in literature that uh certain platforms can have certain norms social norms and this so how to how people tend to behave in these places so what we did look at in reddit is different uh subreddits that have also different norms so there are subreddits where where people are uh know they can be quite aggressive or so that's like the accepted way to to act to be very um um yeah aggressive in your language use and others where people are trying to be very constructive in their discussions there's different norms that also steer behavior indeed and also uh these norms might also dictate the consequences of this behavior because when you expect to be in a place where everybody is calling names and being aggressive etc maybe this is also less hurtful because you think like oh yeah that's the expected behavior and this is how we do here right so this is actually a very important factor to also take into account yeah and um just my second question was um so during the actual experiment um were there like what were your limitations i'd say like what did you feel like maybe you could have done better or to give you know more like uh more insightful like results or something because like for instance from my perspective i was like i found it really interesting that you got a um like for instance an actor to be kind of like an instigator right um but then i would wonder like what if uh you kind of like interviewed people prior and knew where they stood on like a little bit on a political spectrum and then like put those two people together for a more organic kind of like thing but that's just my opinion yeah yeah it's a good point as well yeah yeah and we indeed introduced this confederate because we noticed in the first discussion or in the first study that people were not very strongly opinionated and not really disagreeing about the topics but i in the first study i also tried to select discussion topics that were controversial among students so we did pilot test them etc and we also tried to indeed put people together with different opinions but still people were a bit like yeah we are just here for for the assignment and the study points um so then we had this confederate to get a little bit more uh yeah i don't know yeah controversiality um but then of course a very big limitation of all lab studies is that it is a lab study so it's quite it's not how real life might be or it's like a condensed sort of way to look at it so um it's still the ecological validity is limited so therefore we need to look indeed also in these real online discussions in what happens there but that's can be quite hard as well because they're there then you don't know about how people feel so i would like to know how somebody might feel when they have these online discussions on Reddit or so but the the thing is that it's very hard to find those people and interview them then you can just observe their behavior with no consequences or no psychological consequences so yeah that's all has um advantages and disadvantages so yeah thank you for the questions are there any other questions maybe yeah i have another question um i i first i would like to be clarified which were the age groups in in these two studies that you conducted um which which age groups are i think the first study there were like students or something and in the second study also yeah also students because i have a question do you think that your results are generalizable for the general population and if not which are your hypothesis or i better say expectations of implementing your studies to different age groups yeah yeah it's also a very good question and also a limitation of the studies that we looked only at this younger age group but i think that these are more general processes at least for the diplomatic behaviors we see that yeah in a literature that people often yeah are responsive and ambiguous as well in offline conversations so we know that and i also think that the consequences of of this behavior lacking might be still hurtful also in older generations um but it might be a less or uh or more pronounced for certain age groups and then i'm also thinking about uh yeah something that might be a little bit related to norms or so so that you have maybe um yeah related to expectations so older people might be more used to um yeah to offline uh uh uh conversations so maybe they might be yeah less understanding that the online medium can change behavior and feel even more hurt or not uh i'm not sure yeah so i find it hard to um to think about how it might be different can go both ways for my feeling but i'm not sure whether you have another hypothesis i personally think that younger like students like us are more prone for a conversation because um i might get into another field of nostalgia and stuff but things things are very different nowadays we we have already encountered conversation in social media about difficult topics yeah and um yeah so that's that's why i think in like older age groups are more hesitant this is but this is my own um uh hypothesis so yeah i think that yeah but when you think about uh i'm not sure what you mean with hesitant also the ambiguity side of it because when i'm now thinking about when i send was it messages to my mother she is quite clear and sometimes i feel a bit like oh is she angry or so a little bit so she also is less um yeah i don't know practiced in maybe adapting a little bit to the medium apparently so at least i also try to maybe include some emojis or just try to include some happy words or so not just clear and then with a with a dot at the end so maybe also having this limited experience might also make them appear even more disinhibited or angry or so so yeah that could also happen i think yeah good question there's one more i just i thought of something related to what he said um i think older people tend to be more settled in their opinion especially when you look at like the age group that is now about 18 so gen z they are more likely to listen to input from other people at least in my experience that might be my corner of their internet chiming in but i in my experience adults are older adults are very settled in their opinions and their thoughts and they don't listen to changes and then accept them um which i think might also make them if they are adapt in their abilities in online discussions make them more disinhibited or make them appear more disinhibited because they are so settled and they do that thing of like stating opinions as facts because to them it is a fact it is not an opinion yeah might be uh yeah going home interesting thank you all right any others yeah um so i had a little bit of a question i thought of when you were showing the take home points uh you mentioned limitations of medium yeah and i was wondering so both of your studies kind of focus on variables that are more language focused like ambiguity in terms of oh i think or stuff like that and responsiveness which is also more like the actual words um i was wondering what you thought about tone because often when you usually online conversations are text based and it's very difficult to deduce the tone someone's talking and especially because we all have different textiles and if you're trying to interpret someone's message just based on how you type it sometimes it's vague that way so i want i'm just wondering what you think because i can imagine misinterpreting someone's tone can easily escalate a conversation because you just think they mean something different yeah yeah i think yeah that certainly can happen indeed um so uh yeah this was also something i was struggling with when i wanted to do these studies because we did something that's a little bit maybe weird in a way in that we compared to very different media so we compared offline with online this is like a world of difference and and many things that could be coded in an offline conversation such as facial expressions or tone of voice or all these non-verbal things that are by definition not present online so i couldn't yeah when i would code it it was zero or so so then you don't have any variants you could work with so yeah in that way i i decided for now to leave that out but certainly it will be very important when you indeed smile with your message or say it in a happy tone or so or maybe a little bit like a questionable tone or so like i'm not sure something like that so that that will definitely have a huge effect yeah very good point yeah all right thank you for that um any others that still want to add something i don't think so all right then i would like to thank you karla um yeah very interesting to see this overview and also yeah see the research that you have done i think i learned a lot so that's that's good thank you and also thank you for all your very engaging questions that's always nice when you yeah when you think of that so thank you for the the audience as well please again a very big applause for karla rose


The reason we are going on this jobs and trade mission is because we need to deliver on the very firm commitments that we made in this jobs plan. And we won't be able to deliver on creating jobs for British Columbians unless we open up new markets and we find new customers for our goods, unless we find investors who want to come to British Columbia and create some jobs. In this case, we'll be visiting Japan, which is the world's largest importer of liquefied natural gas. Also a long and dependable friend of British Columbia. In Korea, which is the second largest importer of liquefied natural gas, we'll be trying to open up some new markets for our liquefied natural gas industry here in British Columbia. We're also going to be working with Korean officials and Korean businesses on their clean energy strategies. And then last, we'll be stopping in the Philippines in Manila. I will be the first Premier in history to visit the Philippines, and I'm very proud of that distinction. The Philippines is moving from the 45th biggest economy in the world to the 16th biggest economy in the world, according to HSBC. And so it's a place that British Columbia needs to be. We want to be a part of helping build that market and build BC's presence in that important market. We are very much looking forward to what I think is going to be an exciting trade mission. We're going to open up doors for British Columbia products, for our intellectual capital, for our natural resources, and for our businesses. That's how you create jobs here in British Columbia. We've always been an open trading economy. And the only way you can make sure that an open trading economy succeeds is by doing more trade.