Loss of Character on Online Forums

Due to some recent occurrences, was looking at why some people are extremely rude & inconsiderate (cosnideration is not to be mistaken with political correctness) on Online forums like blogs, emails, discussion groups etc.

Prof Shukla steered me to 2 briliant articles that he has written long back which are very relevant even today.

Essentially this rudeness/hatred/anger/intolerance/arrogance seems to come from the anonymity of Online forums. So people write things they may not necessarily have been able to say face-to-face.

The First Article speaks of

Primitive Process on the Internet
An article by Prof Robert M Young, Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Sheffield, makes two insightful points:

1. "One of the most striking features of email forums... is that people can experience almost no impediment to expressing themselves — for good or ill. Cyberspace has a fantasy quality. As a result, people say the most intimate thing and the most horrid things with considerable ease....

2. "...where people can be whomsoever they like. They change their genders, their degree of assertiveness, their sexual predilections at will. Anything goes...

Read The Entire Article by Prof. Shukla

The Second Article speaks of
Group-Think in Online Chat Groups

Internet is a great democratic medium. But I stumbled on an interesting "real"(/virtual)-life event - a particular online discussion forum - during last few days. Searching for an explanantion about what was happening in this forum (what would look to be a case of collective pathology), led to some interesting resources about what can happen in an Online Community.

Gordon Graham in his book, The Internet: A Philosophical Inquiry [see summary], makes an interesting observation about the online groups, and their "pure confluences of interest".

Graham says that the internet is a medium which enables people to seek out exclusively kindred spirits and to avoid ever being exposed to views which are contrary to their own. He claims that... "the self-made philosopher with a grand but completely vacuous 'theory of everything' will sooner or later find a coterie of people whose knowledge and critical acumen is even less, but who are willing to be impressed."

The Symptoms of Group Think are:

1) Illusion of Invulnerability
2) Belief in Inherent Morality of Group
3) Collective Rationalization
4) Stereotypes of Out-Groups
5) Self-Censorship
6) Illusion of Unanimity
7) Direct Pressure on Dissenters
8) Self-Appointed Mind-Guards

Give the nature of the self-selection in most online chat groups, these symptoms are quite likely to emerge.

Entire Article

Just thought these articles were worth bringing up again since they were last published in 2004.