I even do this in real life. I do this thing where I say my whole next phrase between my teeth and only then I say it out loud and almost 50% of the time I don't repeat it out loud.

This is something I started doing fairly recently and it’s really cathartic! I’d say 90% of the replies I write to people who are rude or looking for an argument, get deleted without sending.

Constantly.

i have a pretty specific example, but i do this in the comment section on pretty much every post about EVs, because very frequently there's somebody repeating the lazy myth that oh actually EVs are just as bad as internal combustion engine vehicles because loose awareness of life cycle assessment. people state this all the time as if it's some kind of philosophical point about the impossibility of technological solutions to climate change, when in actuality it is a quantitative falsehood that is easily disproven with very cursory research, like you can pull up the relevant data from the IEA in like five minutes. ive told this to probably like fifty people, including at my job at an EV company, and it has never once changed their mind, i guess because again people are actually not looking to engage with this point quantitatively. but it still takes me a little while to disengage from my natural inclination to be helpful about something that on its surface is a math question.

I delete probably half of all posts/responses I start (across many accounts). Sometimes it's because I realise the answer to my question while typing it but more often than not it's because I realise what I'm saying is ambiguous/opinionated and I get too anxious about someone taking it the totally wrong way and getting offended or annoyed.

Annoyingly this gets in the way of a lot of my online communication. Either that or I realise no one cares what my opinion is... Unless they directly ask- thanks OP!

You gotta pick your battles.

I find people online tend to have a lot more passion for arguing than I do so I often rethink posting any responses I come up with.

All the time. I could have typed a multi-paragraph masterpiece but then I realise I can't be bothered offering help in a world full of people that know everything about everything and are never wrong.

Something akin to 10% of unwritten comments here. 5% are shared between cases when I write it for too long and still can't see it as a complete thought, or when I get distracted half-way through and can't care to continue. Other 5% is my stupid phone optimi... pushing apps from memory when I switch to something else (even if it's for fact-checking this exact comment), so I lose whatever I wrote and the thread itself.

I used to do it a lot.
Typically this would be responding to someone being provocative.
I decided that they were angry people just trying to make other people angry.
So now I write articles mocking them.
I am much more relaxed now.

I do it sometimes, when I realise midway that I was wrong/don't care enough (usually when I feel that someone hasn't done enough research, but I should likely tell them that instead of just stopping my reply).

I'd say I post about 1/30 responses I make.

Maybe one in 20 or so, mostly I've realized I misread the comment, or I just don't really feel like arguing any more.

All the time but not as often as I should.

I still catch myself in the process of replying to someone who is Wrong On The Internet, but for the most part I just let it go. It still bothers me, but I've accepted that nothing I say on a webforum is going to change any hearts or minds. Nowadays I mostly post to try and give people a cheap laugh.

Less now that I've learned to give up before I start.

One in five, I'll guess. I am prone to TMI, not as much intimate sharing as wanting to write about things that are too far remotely related.

I'm also prone to seguing into a rant as I have much to say I wish were said more often. Sometimes I edit those out. Sometimes I mark them as rants.

And then I am prone to mobile keyboard fatigue, and will wear out if a short explanation won't do. I get back to it at a proper keyboard less often than I don't.

I can't think of a single time I've-

Rough estimate, 30%. Either because my point ended up not being worth making, I ended up being wrong, or the message was dumped at some point between switching through 4 apps and 12 websites gathering information and I can't be arsed to write 400 words again.

Often.

i do this increasingly often lately.

Yesn't

Increasingly more often in the last year or two. Makes social media use for me a lot more pleasant. But sometime I still can't resist.

Can't put a number on it, but I'd wager it happens the majority of the time

I wish more people on Lemmy and everywhere else were like you.