Why Are We So Rude Online? 341
kodiaktau writes "An article in the WSJ discusses why internet users are more rude online than they are in person. The story discusses some of the possible reasons. For example, a study found that browsing Facebook tends to lower people's self control. An MIT professor says people posting on the internet have lowered inhibitions because there is no formal social interaction. Another theory is that communicating through a phone or other device feels like communicating with a 'toy,' which dehumanizes the conversation. Of course, a rude conversation has never happened on Slashdot in the last 15 years."
Re:Obligatory Penny Arcade (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a phenomenon very similar to road rage if we think about it.
Re:Not rude (Score:5, Interesting)
I like how the Hackaday forum has cleaned up its act by permabanning trolls and flamers and holding people more accountable. Yes, it's whackamole with fake accounts but if trolls don't get any traction in your forum eventually they go away. Trolls are a lot like schoolyard bullies and have similar motivations. By removing the enabling mechanism (anonimity) or removing the payoff mechanism (flame response), I expect such bad behaviour can be diminished.
Obligatory Oscar Wilde quote (Score:5, Interesting)
Give a man a mask and he will show his true face. -Oscar Wilde
The question is not "why do some people act like fucktards online?". Deep down, fucktards is exactly what those people are. They just hide it better in real life.
Human Psychology (Score:5, Interesting)
The sad truth pointed out by both of those studies is that approximately 60% of us -- all of us, even those of us who claim to be, and act like, normal ethical people in polite society -- will commit acts of cruelty upon another human being, even to the point of delivering potentially lethal electrical shocks to someone obviously in distress, if the social sanctions against it are removed.And those were both cases in which the victims had voices and (in the latter case) faces by which the perpetrators could witness the suffering they were causing.
In short, the majority of people will be cruel, spiteful bullies if they believe they can get away with it. For me, a good example is (oddly) watching how people treat pigeons (??): they're harmless, no more dirty than, say, hoboes, and live around us. But they are negatively viewed as carriers of disease ("rats of the skies" is such a cliché, and what's so bad about rats, anyway?), and most people wouldn't think twice about trying to scare them and threaten to cause them harm. It seems a bit melodramatic, but I often wonder why a person would want to be mean to some random harmless animal. I think, sadly, that it's because most people like being mean, and just need a venue to get away with it.
The Pinochet regime in Chile figured this out pretty quickly: you don't need to make people commit acts of cruelty against their will. All you have to do is provide a venue for cruelty without consequences, and the people will come out of the woodwork of their own accord. And Facebook/YouTube/your local news station's comments section are just such venues.
Re:Not rude (Score:2, Interesting)
Like what?
Anonymity has always caused assholishness.
It also allows you to tell the truth to "unreasonable" people. IRL if I suggested that Islam was not the religion of peace I would end up with my house burned down, and probably be killed.
True... (Score:5, Interesting)
But, also, there is the effect of childhood bullying. I think that most people who post regularly on Slashdot are aware of this: academic children are more likely to be bullied owing to the general social attitudes of the English speaking world. And that means that when they grow up they have quite a lot of suppressed anger aimed at the stupid people who bullied them. This could be one reason why "jock" attitudes expressed on /. tend to produce such strong negative responses; the other, of course, is that in the real world far too often fools are allowed to persist in their folly and nobody stops them. Blake said that "if the fool persists in his folly he will become wise", but actually it's more likely to be "he will cause immense trouble for other people". On line, it is easier to call a dickhead a dickhead.
Anonymity is only half the equation (Score:4, Interesting)
The other one is seeing that others get away with it and feeling entitled to do the same. That's not limited to the internet, though.
Try it yourself. Get a sign that says "no littering" and put it somewhere where people would probably drop a thing or two if there was no such sign. You will notice that people do actually heed the sign. Now throw some garbage under the sign and watch the pile grow.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not the anonymity. It's the clarity. (Score:5, Interesting)
The common answer to this question is that anonymity online makes us vicious, in the same way in vino veritas is said when some drunk person accidentally blurts out what they're truly thinking.
However, I think it's a combination of factors:
1. You see only the words and the ideas, not the person;
2. There is no social context, like being in line at a bakery;
3. There is little chance of seeing that person again if you don't want to, or of getting the crap pounded out of you;
4. People are very frustrated and angry in general.
If you are in real life, you're interacting with people in a community and you might want to see them again. However, in cities, people behave just about as viciously as they do online, with a slight modification to avoid starting actual physical confrontations.
It's the little things: cutting in line, being snide, bullying people out of the way with your SUV, littering, yapping on cell phones at counters.
Online, you're in a world made only of words and ideas. This encourages you to blurt out what you're really thinking, which is generally disliking most people who aren't doing things your way. There's wisdom in this in that if you've been in the world for awhile, your way evolved because it makes sense. You cast aside all the other behaviors and your way is the aggregate of what's left.
The biggest crypto-factor here however is that people in this society are frustrated. We are meat, with a for sale price on our heads, and we must constantly keep making ourselves available to a callous world in order to bring in the cash. It turns people into whores, makes them hate themselves, and makes them hate the competition, which is everyone else.
I've lived across the world in first-world nations and third-world nations, and while the first-world nations are good on everything else, the degree of self-hatred and resentment here makes me long for the jungle.
Re:Anonymity (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'm not anonymous on Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
Where can you go IRL for that kind of honesty?
I recommend Germany. People often say Germans are "harsh" and "direct", but that's what I love about living here.
When someone screws up at work, you can say "hey, you screwed up" (and expect the same from them when you screw up).
And when I was dating here before I met my wife; I had women straight up tell me, "sorry, I won't go out with you because I think you're ugly". But others (including the woman who is now my wife) straight up told me, "I think you're really cute". The brutal honesty of the former is more than made up for the fact that it makes it much easier to believe the latter when you hear it.
Similarly, I feel a lot closer to my friends here than I did when living in other countries (note however, there are fewer of them), purely because they're so honest that they tell me when they've got a problem with me. I know they're not holding anything back or saying bad things behind my back (they'd just say it to my face).
Note that this is just "in general" and "in comparison to other places I've lived". There most certainly are deceptive backstabbing dickheads here in Germany as well; but in my 5 years here, I've met very few of them.
Re:I'm not anonymous on Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
Getting straight talk is great, but you need to have an expected context or folks might be overly sensitive and reject the message.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19335267 [bbc.co.uk]
Online behavior is closer to New York frankness than what we usually get face-to-face, and that's good, like you suggest. But then there's a large contingent who go overboard or are just venting their spleens rather than being sincere about their criticism. Weeding out that chaff is the trick.