Commenting

My commenting experience was somewhat disappointing. Honestly, I felt very uncomfortable commenting on news websites. Even though I was using a screen name I felt very self-conscious. I commented on an article from USA Today about teenagers balancing jobs and school, a topic I found very interesting, especially being something I could relate to. “Too many hours on the job could put high school teens at risk.” http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/teen-ya/story/2011/02/Too-many-hours-on-the-job-could-put-high-school-teens-at-risk/43712710/1 Many comments spoke of how young workers can benefit from having that experience, others offered suggestions in the midst of a bad economy, and many attacked the article:

“Bulls%!t!! Another lame stupid study! This is just another example of how laziness is becoming a staple in this country. We want everything for nothing and do not want to put the time, effort, or work into anything. All this stupid study does is add another excuse to the list of why we can't work in this country. What's wrong with us?! No wonder we're becoming the laughing stock of the world. The hard working, goal drivin, reach for success America is all but gone!”

I offered my experience and opinion, (see under screen name kitd88) but didn’t receive any direct response, except one measly “like.” I even asked a question to promote discussion but it did not stimulate any further commenting. I would like to get into the comment thread earlier, preferably soon after the story itself is published.

Most of my facebook commenting lead to dead ends. I believe that the streaming news feed destroys a lot of hope for people to have a good discussion on a link of any kind, for after a few minutes, so many other people have updated their statuses or what have you, and the interesting article you saw has now disappeared into the depths of “Older Posts.”  I commented on three news links posted by friends and got feedback only from them. I commented on a CNN article “100 foot narco sub found in Colombia” and got comments from the poster and another friend. http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/15/100-foot-long-narco-sub-found-in-colombia/