This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
Parents, at least of a certain era, used to tell their kids, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
Such advice might seem quaint today.
No matter where we look, it can feel as if we're living in a time of mounting incivility.
Smartphones and social media amplify this feeling.
It used to be that when two people got into an argument in a parking lot or on an airplane, only a few people heard it.
But today, thousands of people witness rude interactions among people they'll never meet.
It's become the stuff of viral videos and memes.
We're not talking to you.
Yeah, but everyone.
We're not talking to you.
Why don't you mind your own business?
We're not talking to you.
I'm not one of these people that work here, so get out of my face.
We often tell ourselves to ignore insults and slights.
Yet psychological experiments show that this is not easy to do and that rudeness has a long lasting, malevolent power.
We're flooded with emotions, and that's when this fight or flight gear kicks in.
You know, one way that I think about this is like the storm inside your brain.
The surprising effects of incivility and how to protect yourself from its toxic influence.