Facebook, Twitter and other messenger conflicts

How do conflicts come to existence, or better how do you deal with a conflict (text) message from a friend, a lover or a Facebook friend.
If we can deal with that, then the conflict cannot or can hardly come to existence.
My friend and colleague asked me the question a couple of days ago when she told me about the huge fight she and her loved one had had. After they had talked about it and things were settled between them, they wanted to find a way to not let this happen again.
My advice was to step back when you first read the message and ask yourself, what is the matter, what makes me so angry or sad that it makes me want to react negatively.
When I say step back, I mean step back from the message and back to your self knowledge.
But today I came to the realisation by my own personal experience that this advice is not enough.
A friend of mine has put a negative message about people in general on her Facebook wall, a message that I took personally. This friend claims to have a spiritual mind and that is why I was even more surprised to read this negative quote, because spirituality usually promotes positivity.
I felt my heart pounding when I read it and immediately had a clever answer ready to undermine this negative quote. But then my heart started pounding even harder, so I knew I was doing the wrong thing.
Fortunately I was able to step back and ask myself what was the matter with me, and that question gave me my answer but it did not help me deal with the fact that I wanted to react.
What helped me calm down and let go of my anger was the question my daughter asked me.
She asked me: do you really want to create a conflict with your friend or can you rise above this behavior?
I am still a bit hurt, annoyed and surprised, but I can rise above this and be ready for the talk with my friend when we meet "live"
Facebook and Twitter are already being abused too often to inflict pain or impress, and clever people understand the cowardice of that.