Prolific Hiver @taskmaster4450le wrote this post about commenting recently.
I replied, er, commented that I'd laid out some Hive goals for 2021, and that surprisingly had them all accomplished before the end of quarter 1. This was thanks in large part to increased engagement on my part in the form of commenting or replying.
This has started me to thinking about comments and replies and the back-and-forth they entail.
First, they take time. Maybe not much, but it does take a bit to reply and respond. This especially if you take the time to offer an authentic, thoughtful reply, something beyond, "Great post, keep it up." I will say that https://engage.hivechain.app/ seems to be a useful tool for aggregating and managing replies (it's new to me and I'm learning how to use it currently).
Also, replies enter into the ping-pong effect of back-and-forth banter. I think people are hard-wired to conjure ideas, put them out there, let them get mangled by others and bounced back, to process them again, bounce them back out there, let them get bounced back, and so on. In the process, that ping pong ball has been dented and changed ever so slightly, hopefully for the better and hopefully more refined.
This is kind of stereotyping, but I'll do it...you know how Canadians tend to end sentences with, "Eh?"? It's kind of silly, but it's also kind of brilliant. No matter what you say, if you end it with "Eh?", you're encouraging a response. Your declarative statement suddenly is a question to be answered. We humans are hard-wired...when there is a question, we answer it. We might be wrong with our answer, but our brains refuse to allow a hanging question to linger.
Case in point...declarative statement...
"It sure is sunny today." - This statement is the end of a conversation.
Case in point...Canadian style...
"It sure is sunny today, eh?" - This non-statement question begs for a response.
"Oh yah! Sunny today. Probably gonna be a flurry tomorrow, eh?"
"Yah! Always changes, eh?"
"Except for last summer. It was hot every day, eh?"
"Sure was. Hottest summer I ever saw, eh?"
"I don't know. Summer of '88 was a scorcher, eh?"
"I remember that summer. I had an old Buick and we used to..."
And on it goes.
With love to Canadians. :)