I block individuals pretty freely, and it generally improves my experience online.

The reason I block is because I’ve lived through bullies and a shitty family, and I am familiar with the techniques bad people use to eat up my time/overwhelm me.

These days, I am also secure in myself and my emotional responses in such a way that I no longer feel bad or guilty (as I was conditioned to growing up) when I remove these people from my life. They are not owed my time or eyeballs.

I figure that if they behave in such a way that other people (such as me) decide it’s better to remove them from their life and block them–that’s their fault, not mine.

I also know my intellect well enough to understand that I’m not losing something irreplaceable intellectually if I block. I actually am better at learning and improving myself in a form that is NOT debate, or live, or putting pressure on me in the moment, because stepping away from the immediacy of something gives me the tools and breathing room to actually think.

So folks yapping and fretting about echo chambers forming if you block and curate your experience is weird to me…even pre-internet I went out of my way to learn new things. If you’re in an echo chamber, you chose to be there, it doesn’t happen on its own. And blocking asshats won’t magically put you in an echo chamber unless you’ve chosen to be in one already.

Live debate with unpleasant people who often in this day and age have ulterior motives, including a desire to provoke an emotional response that will hinder one’s thinking ability, is a technique used to manipulate others. By blocking and opting out of such things online, I can keep my temper more easily and use my brain instead.

So yeah. I block freely, whenever I feel like, and I’ve stopped feeling bad about it because I have quite a bit of experience on the internet now, and have seen the patterns in which people engage, and a handy block button is basically the only effective tool to manage it with.

I also block communities, but that’s mostly just so I can browse Lemmy in public without looking like a degenerate with all the porn subs hanging out in the open.

Personally if I find someone very unagreeable I will check their account to see if this is their whole online personality or just one or two posts, everyone has bad days. If it seems like a a person I would rather avoid altogether I will block.

Echo chamber time

I don’t ever want people I blocked to not be able to see my stuff when the account is public. It’s just a weird limitation and gives a false sense of security. Though not being able to directly reply to things would be nice.

I block freely. My time and attention and mental and emotional bandwidth are limited resources, and to the extent possible I intend to spend them carefully.

I personally do not block. I have always hoped to see changes of heart in people I disagree with, and I also have been on much more abrasive communities, lemmy is kept relatively tidy (at least from my instance’s point of view).

I block only when I see a user who is unhinged enough and is obviously not getting banned by moderators. Usually theses people can be baited into making terrible arguments terrible opinions backed by either terrible ideology or lies, and mods can deal with them.

I think reporting users is more effective to not let the whole site become completely unusable by attracting shitheads/trolls/agitators who even if blocked keep posting garbage because that might be seen by new users.

Also responding to them is taxing on some people’s mental health, so this isint for everyone and I get why people might opt for it. I prefer arguing since there is a chance that they might be misinformed or hot headed (me included).

Honestly it depends on how you want to engage with a platform.

I’m using Boost, so I’ve been using tagging a lot. It’s useful to remind yourself whether someone routinely behaves in a way that you don’t want to interact with.

I’ve probably untagged more people than I’ve blocked at this point. People are complicated, moods change with the weather.

Also helped me to correlate that the majority of my tags were on ml users. I’ve filtered that instance and, can’t lie, using Lemmy is much nicer now.

My blocked list on nextdoor is starting to max out. Have to block all the nazi’s that live around me as they are a lost cause and just repeat constant propaganda.

My lemmy block list is zero and hope it will remain that way for a while. It’s fairly tame discussions here and no real issues so far.

I wish there was a hide posts option, rather than a flat out block. There are some overly prolific posters that i would like to block, but their comments are not an issue, just the 40 rapid fire posts they make everyday.

I use the Boost app, so I just tag users who are being annoying. I only rarely block someone.

I have gone through phases of blocking very vocal idiots, but then as you said I feel at an informational disadvantage.

I’ve gotten recently into tagging people with descriptions of repeated behavior. That way I still know what’s going on, but I know what to expect from them.

I think the ability or willingness to have a decent conversation with people who have a different opinion is important for the advancement of ideas and a cornerstone of what we call civilization. I find it so weird to see how people “debate” these days instead of conversing, it’s somehow more about winning than finding the truth of a matter. Watch for example how political discourse has changed over the last few decades, compare discussions from the 70s like Chomsky vs Foucault to the circus of today. People are already largely separated in different platforms, blocking only exacerbates the bubble effect. That being said, to each their own and I hope your life is better for it.

It’s great for your mental state.

Just be aware of any filter bubble you might create. If you block every person that has an opposite perspective, you’ll fall into your own echo chamber.

I’ve gotten more aggressive with blocks lately. Feels like there’s been a lot more arguing and drama on here lately than usual, and I haven’t been on as much because of it. Blocking at least drowns a lot of that out.