It struck me awhile back how the now ubiquitous comment section at the end of articles on virtually every website is a recent phenom. It wasn’t that popular even four years ago during the last presidential cycle. This got me thinking on the purpose and impact of these comments. Is anyone ever swayed by a comment posted on a news site? The potential is there to have thoughtful replies, but to date I’ve seen nothing but partisans spewing vitriol, whose idea of clever is to invent nicknames of candidates - “McSame,” “Nobama.” There are occasional sane and levelheaded posts, but these are the exception to the rule.

At face value no one ought to pay any attention to this drivel. But subconsciously it must devalue the conversation, the same way any attention on non-issues does. I tend to read the first page or two of comments on articles I’ve read, but now I’m wondering whether or not this is just polluting my mind.

There are people who pay close attention to these comment sections. You can watch rivals sniping one another, jumping from article to article. Never in a way that might sway anyone, always combative. What’s the point? It seems even more dubious than a blog like this one. The one result - that I can come up with - of comment sections during this election year is to reinforce images we’re already getting from the media (mainstream or otherwise), the candidates, and pop culture. If levelheaded comments are rare, original ones are nonexistent.

So they buoy negative campaigning, and little else? Here’s a case of technology letting us down - or (more likely) vice versa.

This post had Andy Rooney written all over it. Bleh. I apologize in advance.