downvotes REALLY bother me. why it bothers me personally: i have severe mental health issues (to the point of disability). due to how i grew up, i heavily internalized being and accepting that i'm always bad and horrible and wrong and punishing myself for it. when i get criticized or downvoted - even if it's silly - i feel HORRIBLE, because obviously i MUST'VE done something VERY BAD and VERY WRONG and i must be PUNISHED and i must CORRECT. and it's even more frustrating when i don't know what to correct. bonus, i have autism and adhd, so i can say things considered "wrong" and not know why, but people won't explain it to me because apparently i should magically know. and i don't want to be a bad person, but now i'm suddenly a bad person and i don't know what to do about it.

this is just ME. i don't think it applies to most people. and inb4 "bruh it's just a downvote, it's not that deep, touch grass" AGREED. BIG AGREE. but if you understand anything about psychology, it can take a very long time to undo stuff that's so deeply ingrained from childhood, if it can be undone at all. i have actually heavily improved in this area in terms of recognizing i'm not necessarily wrong and rarely need to be punished, but the emotional reaction sadly has not changed much.

also, some (not all) people just seem to use downvotes as a personal attack, and that's just annoying as hell. i think people can relate to this much more.

i try hard not to downvote, because i don't think it's necessary most of the time. people seem to downvote the silliest things...

On reddit, reaching a certain negative score threshold would often hide your comment, meaning that your contribution to the thread would be hidden. As the site got older, karma began to be used as an initial leaping off point for participation in some communities, making down votes socially expensive for casual participants, since that slowed their ability to interact with the more restrictive communities in the site.

I think it's simple. When you post something or reply to a post, you're sharing a part of yourself with your community. Down votes mean people don't like what you shared.

That's why I upvote liberally and downvote sparingly. I'd rather my input be encouraging than discouraging.

It's mainly a feeling of rejection, as others have said. But also, when I post a non-joke comment that gets downvoted but not replied to, I really want to know what the point of disagreement was. It's frustrating to not know what nerve I've hit. The negative number next to my comment tells me nothing useful.

Probably because they tie it to their own personal self-image or self-worth. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, downvotes are virtual and don't mean a thing in the real world.

People don't like rejection. Evolutionarily rejection from peers/society means danger. Even if it's not dangerous now, the brain (especially the amygdala) reacts the same. People get anxious, defensive, etc. It takes time and reflection to accept that maybe what you said was wrong or socially unacceptable. Internet is too fast to reflect, it's much easier to respond in anger and then forget it all.

When used correctly (for irrelevant/trolling/toxic comments etc., not for disagreement) it is useful as a community filter.

fake internet points dont matter at an individual level on this platform - up/down votes on posts affect the weight metric about how they get displayed in the feed but dont really seem to matter too much either.

as others have said, it's a mental/cognitive thing - but it's also social to the extent that each online community has its own social rules, some unspoken, that everyone mindlessly obeys because if you dont you'll get shadowbanned/silenced by power tripping moderators.

It’s a validation thing if not a competitive thing. They want/need the most points or to feel like there’s support for their views. Just a bit of sociology