Under The Influence: Malini Agarwal Identifies Ways To Tackle Online Hate

Malini Agarwal, founder of the lifestyle blog MissMalini, has experienced the Internet at its best and worst. As a pioneering content creator, she has seen tremendous success and made mistakes on the medium – and learnt vital lessons from it all. In Under the Influence, Malini deep dives into the psychology of rampant online hate culture, explaining why it exists, and provides practical tools to tackle it. With insight and empathy, she guides users on how to deal with trolls and cancel culture, respond to hate and provocation and combat negativity with positive action and mindfulness.

Here's an excerpt from Malini Agarwal's Under The Influence

There was a time where I would wake up in the morning and obsessively check my follower count, the number of likes on a post and how many comments I got. And then I would proceed to feel deeply gutted if the numbers didn’t feel grand enough for the amount of effort or excitement I had poured into what I would posted. Then I would refresh and refresh and repeat the same process with another post till I was deeply immersed in a blue cloud of absence. The problem with access to 5.3 billion people on the internet is that when you post something and nobody notices, you feel even more lonely than when you started. So, I did two things.  

First, I turned off the public display of likes on my post and I turned off being able to see anyone else’s either. So now I no longer judge a post by how many people double tapped it, I decide  for myself if it engages me. Second, I made a rule for myself. The  minute my eyes wander to the number of comments on a post, and I feel that little tinge of ‘why didn’t more people love this?’,  I immediately have to leave my page and visit someone else’s and leave a meaningful comment. This generally elicits some kind of  excitement back and I immediately feel good about myself, and I’ve given someone else a shot of dopamine too!  

The great thing about the helper’s high is that the more you  give, the higher you get. And how much you give is always in your  own hands. Isn’t that so much more promising and rewarding  that constantly worrying about who’s coming to give you a pat on  the back or double tap on your virtual face? I think so.

I found some fun facts for you on kindness too. 

In an article by Sarah Tashjian, ‘Does It Pay to Be Kind?’, she identifies several benefits of kindness, all supported by scientific inquiry. Here are some of them: 

•  Prosocial behaviours increase happiness and self-esteem

•  Being kind improves how others see and accept you

•  Kindness leads to reductions in risks for disease

•  Neural networks related to reward fire when we’re kind, and when we see others experience kindness. No two people express or behave with kindness the same way or to the same degree. Tashjian also identified that: 

•  People with less money show more generosity, charitability and helpfulness 

•  Children who are more social exhibit more prosocial behaviour 

•  Kindness is positively related to better self-regulation and  less emotional reactivity

Researchers from KindLab at Kindness.org conducted a meta analysis of twenty-seven experimental studies. According to them, research supports that kindness has a significant effect on wellbeing. KindLab also reported several other findings including: 

•  Kindness ranked above physical attractiveness in a potential  mate.  

•  If a doctor expressed empathy and kindness, surveyed  patients’ colds shortened by one day

•  Kindness can lower the effects of stress 

•  Being kind to others boosts psychological flourishing

•  Kindness is an effective way to reduce state-level social anxiety 

And here is why it is so important that we all dig deep and find our kindness: it is the kindness of strangers that will save us  in the end, and wouldn’t you like to be someone else’s kind  stranger? It’s quite a magical feeling, trust me. To validate  someone, to witness them, is the meaning of joy.

Extracted with permission from Malini Agarwal's Under The Influence; published by HaperCollins