Want to win an argument on Facebook? Read on

New York, Feb 19: If you have never won an argument on Facebook while reacting to burning social or relationship issues on your friends’ timeline, don’t fret. Here are certain simple rules which, if followed properly, can make you a winner in online arguments. According to Chenhao Tan, a PhD candidate in computer science from Cornell University, the team followed 18,000 threads on social networking website Reddit under the subreddit “r/changemyview” over two and a half years to find out that people need to follow certain rules if they want to win online arguments. “We find that persuasive arguments are characterised by interesting patterns of interaction dymics such as participant entry-order and degree of back-and-forth exchange,” Tan noted. “Furthermore, by comparing similar counter arguments to the same opinion, we show that language factors play an essential role,” he added. In particular, the interplay between the language of the opinion holder and that of the counter argument provides highly predictive cues of persuasiveness. (IANS)