Film about tackling loneliness with technology

Well I think this is more than 'some people being straightforward and others interpreting what has been said as a snippy putdown'. Yes, there is room for interpretation but it's like the use of humour, i.e. it's double sided and something offensive can be said and then covered up with 'oh, can't you take a joke?!'

I was thinking about this and idly Googling and I came across a site teaching English to foreigners which had a very useful analysis of how to be tactful:

"When you speak English, it’s important to say what you mean and express yourself clearly. There are times, however, when telling the complete truth might offend someone.

Being tactful in English is not about lying, it’s about expressing yourself in a way that won’t upset the person you are talking to. There are several ways you can be tactful in English.

Find something positive to say
Or sometimes, it’s just best to avoid a topic.

Sympathise
When you need to talk about a difficult or potentially upsetting topic with someone, think about how they will feel and adjust your speech accordingly. Use expressions like ‘sorry’ or ‘I understand how you feel’ to let the person you are speaking know that you realise this is a difficult situation for him or her.

Offer advice
If someone is upset and you are able to help them, sometimes it’s a good idea to offer advice.

Tell a white lie
There are some times when we just have to lie to avoid hurting a person’s feelings. A lie like this that we tell to prevent a person being hurt rather than for our own personal gain is called a ‘white lie’.

So now you know how to be tactful in English, you never need to be worried about speaking in a difficult or awkward situation again.

Simple?

Sorry notentirely but I think that’s a load of patronising rubbish and I object in particular to being told to tell ‘white lies’.
‘White’ lies are the same as any other lies - they’re lies.
In any case, interacting with people you don’t know on an online forum is quite different from talking to people in real life. Tact is not a pre-requisite for posting and that hackneyed phrase about heat and kitchens springs to mind.

The onus is just as much on the person reading the comment not to interpret it in the most unfavourable way, as it is on the person making the comment not to be deliberately hurtful.

GN has forum guidelines for etiquette and I think they are quite sufficient. Some members would say they are applied in far too draconian a manner.

notentirelyallthere people bring to understanding words a lifetime of experiences and expectations and most of us have filters over our ears and every word and group of words that we hear comes through these filters.

It is something I am very conscious of because there have been two people in my family whose filters are so so dense that no matter how simple the phrase you say to them, they can completely misinterpret it because their immediate response in one case was to assume, based on a hard childhood, that anything said to them was likely to be negative and critical and in the other case someone whose instinct is always to think 'that's what someone said to me but what did they really mean' and then respond to what they decided the person really meant.

Classic example of the first person. They sustained a lot of damage to their shoulder in an accident and were given exercises to do to help recovery, which they did. When they saw the consultant (I was with them) he said 'I cannot guarantee a full recovery but keep doing the exercises and you should get most of the way there.' The patient never did another exercise and ended up with a useless arm because, according to him the consultant said 'I was not going to get any better even if I did the exercises'. Nothing I said could convince him otherwise.

It's a bit of a problem isn't it - the puzzle of language, what words mean, what people say, what others hear - made worse by the written form. Is GN the Good Friday Agreement, Brexit, the Bible, the Koran writ large? Perhaps.

Your example Monica is of face to face communication gone wrong. Having taught adult fitness classes, I have seen only too well what I used to call the 'sheep' syndrome. People often want to be babied, to feel that someone will take responsibility for their lives and make it all better (like mummy may have done).

Your point and the debate over language on GN raises the interesting question in answer to the OP of can technology answer the state of loneliness in people? The answer might appear to be that it's down to the humans behind the technology and if we're talking robots, then who and how they are programmed. We have an Alexa who is programmed to say 'I'm sorry, I don't know that'. Would this be satisfactory to a lonely person sat behind a computer? Would it be more satisfactory than unkind and unpleasant responses dressed up as 'being honest'?

As to a patronising post......not sure if this comment was directed at me or the content of the post from the said website. I was quietly amused by the website, if it was directed at me, well, I'll consider myself part of the club then, since I see plenty of patronising posts on GN. La, la, off to have my coffee now.