Slashdot Mirror
Why Are We So Rude Online?
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."
Oh, but this is simple. People are rude when, well... Well let me tell you a story of my friend called Dave.
Dave was an ordinary boy with wild imagination. He was popular with the guys for several reasons, but the fact that he and his mother let us play GoldenEye on his Nintendo64 wasn't easy to ignore. All of us guys used to gather at his house and play a few rounds of the great multiplayer experience that only the original GoldenEye gave.
I noticed that people tented to get angry during the game. They would verbally attack other players and even punch them a bit. Dave didn't - he actually seemed quite an non-aggressive fella. What was the secret to Dave's non-aggressive and non-rude behavior? Because his mother made him these wonderful home cooked pizzas. He wasn't angry because he ate well!
...you insensitive clod!
1) In Soviet Russia, internet is rude to YOU! 2) I for one welcome our rude, toy-using internet overlords!
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Leave it to the WSJ to be 15+ years behind the times in figuring this out.
This article is totally off. Of course, the most important reason is the (perceived) anonymity.
Fscking morons.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
I also feel that we're being desensitized. What used to be rude IRL but okay online, is now considered okay IRL as well. I'm not sure this is a bad thing per se. Sometimes it makes conversation just more efficient, without all the social cruft.
Why, it's the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory that explains it
...and if you don't agree go fuck yourself
it's cool to be a complete dick to somebody you don't even know.
Now feck off.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
This does not apply to me. I am exactly the same, online or offline. Whoever met me online and then offline could testify. I use some profanity in both "worlds" and I act and react the same. These realms are't different in my view. Of course, I'm maybe one of few, but I've seen other people act similarly.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
... now stfu and do something useful with your life! You're a dork for even thinking of something as ridiculous as this. Lol.
...is that my computer screen doesn't punch me in the face when I talk about the sweet, though slightly twisted and, depending on your geolocation, illegal relationship I had with your mother...
She was great, by the way.
the same reason youtube's flash player sucks more as time goes on: fuck you, that's why.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
When I thought about it, I found that there indeed has been no rude message in Slashdot, ever. So I propose we discuss constructively how to keep up this fine tradition and even improve it! If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me. Oh, and if you happen to be in the town, I'll definitely buy you a beer. Have a nice day. :)
No-one teaches the social manners communicating online. Not parents, or educators.
Therefore, people behave without them, and are more expressive towards desires.
..no one can punch you in the face
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.
Most people are assholes. The internet lets you show your true self without getting beat up.
The reason is very simple, if somewhat disheartening. Take a look at some of the literature on human behavior, particularly the studies on the "banality of evil" (texbook scenarios are the Milgram Experiment and the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment).
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.
And it haven't stopped me from being a jerk.
Nice theory, fucktard.
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.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I leaned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear-skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired
The valentines I never knew
The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautiful
At seventeen I learned the truth
And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say, "Come dance with me"
And murmured vague obscenities
It isn't all it seems at seventeen
A brown-eyed girl in hand-me-downs
Whose name I never could pronounce
Said, "Pity, please, the ones who serve
'Cause they only get what they deserve"
And the rich relationed hometown queen
Marries into what she needs
With a guarantee of company
And haven for the elderly
So remember those who win the game
Lose the love they sought to gain
In debentures of quality and dubious integrity
Their small town eyes will gape at you
In dull surprise when payment due
Exceeds accounts received at seventeen
To those of us who knew the pain
Of valentines that never came
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball
It was long ago and far away
The world was younger than today
When dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me
We all play the game and when we dare
To cheat ourselves at solitaire
Inventing lovers on the phone
Repenting other lives unknown
They call and say, "Come on, dance with me"
And murmur vague obscenities
At ugly girls like me at seventeen
fuck you. that's why
I'm not fucking rude, you moron.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I'm no more rude online than I am in the real world. I am capable of sweetness and light right up until someone says something insulting or staggeringly stupid, and then I let them have it with both [verbal] barrels. Most of the stuff that really sets me off, nobody would ever fucking say to me face to face without trying to start a fistfight. Slashdot is especially great about that but there's definitely some jerkwads on G+ that are the same way, and I'm not even talking about the trolls.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
First, most people are rude in general. We put a mask of politeness on top of it when in public for fear of "causing a scene" (or picking on the wrong person who *isn't* afraid of causing a scene back).
I find it amazing how many people will let, say, someone push in front of a queue. In some, perfectly civil, countries it's positively mandatory to fight with your fellow man to be the next person served. In others, you can jump in front of a queue of 50 and barely be tutted at, for fear of "causing a scene", even if you're not some huge bruiser.
But inside our heads, we're all thinking "Arsehole" when that happens, even if not with that exact word. Some people will expose that internal thought to the outside world, most won't.
On the Internet, the same reason you can have more in-depth conversations about controversial topics, tell people you've never met things about you that you haven't told your own friends, and air views just to cause a nuisance because you find it funny: Anonymity, or at least pseudo-anonymity, let's you not worry about causing a scene. The worst you'll get is some online reaction that you can block, ignore or just not visit that site again.
I've done it myself. Aired my views on a topic which doesn't have a definitive answer, been shouted down, not bothered to read the other people's rants and opinions or just not bothered to read that thread ever again.
Everyone is being rude all day long - calling their boss, the person in the other car, the person on the other end of the phone, or any number of other people names in the privacy of their head. Sometimes they let it slip because it's consequence-less or they don't care about the consequences. And on the Internet, the consequences are generally SEVERELY limited so it's easier to say what you think without rationalising too much and having to stop insulting people.
Everyone, in the privacy of their head, has thought "You're a dickhead" about someone they know or have met. The Internet just lets you air that without anyone ever knowing that it's YOU saying it (if you've half a brain about not putting your personal information on the net).
Well, this writes itself. People in cars are just so crazy as opposed to when you see them face to face.
Because 99% of the people online are stupid.
Actually, 99% of people in real life are stupid as well. Maybe I am just intolerant of idiots and being surround by them.
Not you, of course.
Thanks
On the internet people can hear what you're thinking.
In real life they can't.
I post online at my regular level of rudeness. While in person many find me to be an insufferable jackass, online I come across as a perfect gentleman.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
communicating through a phone or other device feels like communicating with a 'toy,'
Wow this statement made me feel old. The fact that the author felt no need to qualify it with "via typing" makes me feel even older.
That online forums, blogs, etc. tend to attract that percentage of the population online that is capable of behaving like this. I bet if you met a lot of the people who behave rudely online, their "offline" personas are simply a change of degree from how they behave online. I think it's far more likely that the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is not only true, but that fuckwads aren't really normal, decent people in their daily lives and they tend to pool together online.
It's that neoconservatism has made people generally more self-absorbed, hypocritical cunts.
People are too quick to blame the tool and too slow to blame the mind.
Obligatory:
John Gabriels Greater Internet F*ckwad Theory.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Next question.
unless you're on the internet and anonymous, in which case you can go all out.
It takes social skills to argue in person.
1. Target audience, we're less prone to being polite and conform to social norms with strangers. Simply put, in a forum full of nicknames and no physical connection with the people behind those nicknames we often don't care what they think.
2. Anonymity, there's no consequence to behaving badly/rudely. In fact some people are encouraged they managed to upset another person.
3. Motivation, often when a person is confronted with a similar pattern or argument they would opt to dismiss it, as quickly and as long lasting as possible. This often happens with rehashed debates when people simply give up or excuse themselves from having to explain or repeat. They resort to an emotional response, anger, trolling or ridicule. Often a mix of a few things.
So it regresses to a response that may be useless to one person and more useful to the person responding. Instead of wasting their time hearing something they disagree with people want their beliefs reinforced, not challenged. This is doubly true if the challenge is obviously flawed or flat out wrong.
So more often than not, when someone asks a question that has an obvious answer, is flawed etc someone will make fun of it. A social currency if you will, I have taken time to consider your words, you have said something I deem foolish, I wasted my time but have made fun of you as to at least derive satisfaction. right, wrong, moral or not.
It also allows some people to get attention. This is especially easy if they are consistently funny and other users read their responses, jokes, input, trolling etc.
4. Medium, The way we process written language differs to the way we process verbal language. Typing often allows you to put down raw thoughts that you later revise, edit and refine. When we speak we often think twice about what we are saying, to whom and how that may sound to them.
Conveying emotion is text is much harder, there is no tone of voice, no pitch, volume, pronunciation or accent etc.
5. Human nature, being rude, trolling, it may be a form of rough play. I believe it is imperative that some people experience some of that rough play, it's character building and will allow them to understand they are not a special and unique snow flake that happened to be the 8th winner, their just dumb, fat and live in their mother's basement.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
In real life, when I come across the type of morons who regularly posts online, I really want to punch them in the face. Kick them in the groin. Rip out their tongues so that they can stop insulting me with their dumb-ass arguments. That is my natural behavior. Social pressure as humans went from wild animals to socialized beings have made us frown upon such social behavior. Whacking someone over the head with a chair just because he is dumb enough to believe in Intelligent Design might be the right, and desirable thing to do, but we can't. Not any more. Sadly.
Online we can. Verbally. So it brings out the true personality within.
That still doesn't answer the question of why people are more fucktarded online than face-to-face.
I thought the Oscar Wilde quote explained it all and quite eloquently.
Consider "mask" to be a metaphor for the internet. So instead of wearing and hiding behind a mask, such as Spider-Man, you are hiding behind internet anonymity - except for places that require real names.
The internet is just another mask in most cases.
The answer is fear. Online there is nothing to fear from being rude. In real life, there are a variety of things to fear from doing this.
From Wikipedia: Sometimes, people deliberately employ rude behaviors to achieve a goal. Early works in linguistic pragmatism interpreted rudeness as a defective mode of communication. However, most rudeness serves functional or instrumental purposes in communication, and skillfully choosing when and how to be rude may indicate a person's pragmatic competence. Robin Lakoff (1989) addressed what she named 'strategic rudeness,' a style of communication used by prosecutors and therapists to force their interlocutors (a courtroom defendant or patient) to talk or react in a certain way. Rudeness in everyday speech "is frequently instrumental, and is not merely pragmatic failure" (Beebe, 1995, p. 154). Most rude speakers are attempting to accomplish one of two important instrumental functions: to vent negative feelings, and/or to get power. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudeness#section_3
People treat anonymity differently.
Most people are more selfish: Such as road rage, internet trolling and ugly tourist behaviours.
But some people (mostly female) see the recipient as anonymous: This allows romantic crushes without personal contact, sexting and 'lost puppy' sympathy.
I also think it has to do with seeing others do it or becoming a victim of rudeness yourself - so you get the impression it is ok or want to retaliate.
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
asshole
Your Mom's Dildo is ready!
It might be interesting to test for differences between rude people and not rude people wrt personality traits, background, education etc.
What kind of idiot has to wonder why people are rude online? It's because we're rude in real life. We just make more of an effort to cover it up in person to avoid the social pressure of looking like an asshole in front of everybody.
That kind of real-life instant feedback is compelling, but does not exist on the Internet.
Now have a nice day and go fuck yourself.
...was the cause of it all
Like texting "You know your shit!" versus "You know you're shit!"??
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
People can not punch you in the face over the internet :).
Thought this might answer http://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences/cutting_off
and the horse you rode in on.
Playing Unreal Tournament back in the day, I would should everything to the last fuel barrels if it exploded. In RL I think twice before killing a cockroach. QED
Fuck that. People are rude in real life.
Of course, a rude conversation has never happened on Slashdot in the last 15 years
This is, ironically, true. Rudeness tends to occur when people stop trying to communicate and instead engage in monologue. In a dialogue, people try to reach out and find some sort of common understanding - that is almost the definition of a dialogue. Thus, even on /., when conversation happens at all (as opposed to a shouting match), it will tend to be polite, although what constitutes 'polite' may sometimes be surprising.
Being rude is turning up late to a meeting. It's not offering a 'warm beverage' to guests. It's not saying your pleases and thank-yous. It's not wiping your feet before entering. It's answering a phone call whilst in someone's company. It's not holding the door open for someone.
;p
It's all about showing a lack of manners.
Online? With posts being too easy to take the wrong way, there is little rudeness. What people are talking about is abuse, name calling and crudeness - and that's too easy.
You want rude online? It's too difficult to explain to the average poster on Slashdot.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Because most people have no self esteem and a huge ego.
Thats it, that simple. People have big egos but no self esteem so when they go online they get a cheap, quick and easy sense of self satisfaction by acting like a rude asshole to complete strangers from behind the safety of their computer screens knowing they will never have to actually be face to face with anyone. So they can easily get a chance to not be cowards and be the dick for once because they cant stand up for themselves or be honest in real life. They can just easily post a message and walk away with a smug sense of self satisfaction at "really telling that person" how it is. Plus they can post online and walk away from ever seeing a response so they feel like they have somehow won because to them they got the last word in.
As the unreal tournament greater fuckwad theory taught us years ago. Normal person + Anonymity + Audience = Complete Fuckwad.
"We're less inhibited online because we don't have to see the reaction of the person we're addressing" says the article.
That's an understatement. Let's go a bit further, and say that we don't have to face the consequences, often physical (i.e. getting one's ass kicked). The typical internet abuser feels pretty safe hiding behind his Net anonymity and his bad-ass avatar.
The net has created loser types like the Internet Tough Guy or the Big Pretender: Fake PHDs, Special Forces,Martial Arts Master spreading their bullshit stories. Trolls and flamers, consumed by irrational hatred towards people they don't even know. As if the Internet was not polluted enough with pop-up adds and "marketing" companies smearing their logo feces on the "Web 2.0".
Why are people so rude online? Because they can. Because in real life interactions, they won't do the same since they would be often facing dire consequences. Because a sizable chunk of Internet users are plain cowards. As simple as that.
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.
Essentially any society gravitates towards the lowest common denominator unless there is leadership taking it in the opposite direction. In the real world there are institutions which provide such leadership (places of worship, employers who demand respect among employees and towards customers, etc.) On the Internet no such leadership exists. When such leadership is introduced, the level of rudeness actually drops quite a bit -- just look at what happened in WoW guilds lead by polite people vs the ones lead by playerz. The level of discourse is raised when someone is able to introduce penalties on those lowering the level of discourse.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Part of the issue is that some people don't apply the correct emotional state to an online context. Depending on how you read a post or a comment it can change the emotion behind it from happy to mad. So I don't think that people are more rude, I just think people have a harder time trying to read the emotional state of electronic information.
There are multiple theories, and this is just one. ...
I do not see you provide any substantiation for why this one in particular would be so obvious as to warrant a "No Shit Sherlock" reply, compared to other theories like lack of accountability or skewed demographics (rude people posting more, or polite people posting less), or
In particular, I think this theory is not obvious, because the same does not appear to hold true for one-to-one communications, just one-to-many. E-mails, for example are usually pretty free of rudeness, unless they are mailing lists anonymizing its members.
Because of this, I think the lack of accountability is the number one cause here, and that your reply was both a cheap shot and misplaced.
Oh, and before I forget: You goatbotherer, you.
That was really interesting... who cares about rudeness :-)
I find no shortage of rude people everywhere I go!
The reason people are rude is because communication on the Internet is done through text rather than through voice.
That's all there is to it.
There are multiple theories, and this is just one. I do not see you provide any substantiation for why this one in particular would be so obvious as to warrant a "No Shit Sherlock" reply, compared to other theories like lack of accountability or skewed demographics (rude people posting more, or polite people posting less), or ...
In particular, I think this theory is not obvious, because the same does not appear to hold true for one-to-one communications, just one-to-many. E-mails, for example are usually pretty free of rudeness, unless they are mailing lists anonymizing its members.
Because of this, I think the lack of accountability is the number one cause here, and that your reply was both a cheap shot and misplaced.
Oh, and before I forget: You goatbotherer, you.
It is that obvious, anonymity has everything to do with it, when there are no consequences for actions people do not censure themselves. Even something as simple as karma curbs this action, how often do you see A.C. posting rude things compared to everyone else? One on one emails are not anonymous and acting rude carries consequences, the person you are corresponding with will get upset and you may not correspond with them any more, it only takes a small deterrent.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
is the psychological technical term for what often happens I believe...
The classic deindividuation experiment concerned American children at Halloween. Trick-or-treaters were invited to take sweets left in the hall of a house on a table on which there was also a sum of money. When children arrived singly, and not wearing masks, only 8% of them stole any of the money. When they were in larger groups, with their identities concealed by fancy dress, that number rose to 80%. The combination of a faceless crowd and personal anonymity provoked individuals into breaking rules that under "normal" circumstances they would not have considered.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jul/24/internet-anonymity-trolling-tim-adams
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deindividuation
I hate your face!
No, seriously, people pay good money to see those kinds of videos.
.... for being a ballsy asshat on the internet.
It's easier to be bold and get approval for your boldness when people don't look you in the eye. Being anonymous provides self-confidence and less judgement directed at you, but rather your alter ego, the anonymous side of one's personality.
Even if people know who you are, you still feel protected somehow by the lack of personal face to face interaction.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
People are rude online because they feel that can get away with it. It's that simple. It's the same reason someone will happily threaten you on a forum, then completely avoid you in person. It's no different than the "behind your back" talking that is done offline.
Internet conversation also generally lacks emphasis and that leads to misunderstandings. Misunderstandings coupled with relative anonymity leads to people acting far more dramatically than they might otherwise behave.
Just another ignorant American.
Ah! Rudeness due to Lack of Accountability. "And your point is? And this is important why?"
I guess I've been around so long I have seen the differences in the interactions of people whether face to face, whether an audience is present, whether on the telephone (especially back before cell phones), whether on CB radio, whether on "ham" radio, whether by telegram, whether by the old BBS system, whether by internet forums and - Well, I did read the article and it was all stuff that was neither surprising or new or unexpected to me. So - When I see someone write up some Captain Obvious article like this one, to me it's a "No Shit Sherlock" moment. When it gets down to stuff like "...Another study found that people who browsed Facebook for five minutes and had strong network ties were more likely to choose a chocolate-chip cookie than a granola bar as a snack...." I say "And your point is? And this is important why?" This is nothing more than an article about some over priced "studies". I just love the title: "Why We Are So Rude Online". The same stuff was going on in the old POTS line BBS's. Online rudeness isn't new, and the reasons for it are, I'm sorry to say, pretty obvious without expensive studies.
I'm betting it started with the telephone so many years ago ("multiple personalities": face to face vs. via an intermediate such as a telephone), it's just that we were a small group of "nerds" in the 1980's BBS days whereas today you have Facebook which is full of millions of people (that's one big herd, pardner!).
But then again, now that I think about it, it probably goes back to when humans developed speech. It was one things to speak to someone face to face (accountability), but to yell down the hill "Hey, asshat" was much safer if they wanted to insult someone (less accountability unless the guy down the hill is faster than you).
Anyway, I thought article was useless. My opinion. Basic stuff I learned in psychology classes in college many, many moons ago. As always, YMMV As far as I'm concerned, the WSJ had some space to fill with some stupid "Oh My!" fluff.
If communicating with a phone or email feels like communicating with a toy, then when somebody is rude to you via that medium, it should feel like a toy is being rude to you, so it shouldn't bother you.
Get over it.
If something like that actually existed, I think the Internet would be a much more polite place.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Because I don't have to look at your stupid face.
A lifetime of violence and rude social interaction taught to us by a glowing tube. When we type on that glowing tube we type into that environment; our flame-wars pale in comparison to most 30-minute interactions we use as models for tube social interaction. And because we can get away with it.
Sent from my ENIAC
People are more rude online because there are no immediate consequences for their behavior. If you are within arm's reach of someone, you are much less likely to say something insulting because they might just decide to beat the ever-living crap out of you.
Proverbs 21:19
There is sender intended and receiver assumed rudeness. The latter is rude on the part of the receiver and the worst of the two as the reader mostly cannot be bothered to verify.
/. where you'd think nerds would read carefully and assume mirth and joviality.
It happens a lot even here on
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Because fuck you, that's why.
We've experienced this a lot on Luunr. I think it comes down to accountability. There is a place for anonymous posts, but for the most part the quality of content is strongly tied to how accountable the users are. On Luunr anyone can create discussion rooms anonymously while users must be logged in to comment. The discussion topics are all over the map and include some pretty raunchy things, while the discussion (by users tied to a simple email account) are much more thoughtful, deep, and conversational.
...as soon as someone invents a way to punch someone else in the face over the Internet.
I understand that English is a living language, but I object to changes arising merely from repeated errors.
NO!.
Dammit. See, the law doesn't work. Betteridge must have been a tool.
I think Bill Burr hit the nail on the head with this one: "because there are no physical ramifications for being an asshole" [on the net] (I added the end piece, thank you)
Posting AC, sorry
I don't know, but I bet this is the only thread where a post consisting of simply "Fuck You" could be rated +5 Insightful.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
We're rude because we feel safe behind our wall of perceived untouchable anonymity.
If we say anything offensive, the recipient can't simply reach through our screen and wallop us for it, so we feel almost obligated to be (in our own opinion) brutally honest, or at the very least unfiltered.
Add to that, the detached sense of reality given the less-than-substantial nature of the internet, and you have a great recipe for being rude.
Couple that with the tendency for many folks to be tweeting of Facebooking while at work, and using the media to vent their daily frustration, and Voila! Rudeness abounds!
Sadly, the generation of (i)Pod People has become even more socially detached now that nobody has to so much as look at one another any more 'cause they're so busy talking (texting/tweeting/e-mailing) on their Smartphones to have a real conversation.
Ever watch such people on a "Date"? They often tune each other out while sending or responding to some message from someone else! Wonder what the food and service are like? Check their Tweet feed! I'll bet it's less than nice! The waiter would never get told, because they've already vented their displeasure to their circle of friends, but won't give the establishment the satisfaction of even trying to make it right.
Most internet interaction now happens from smartphones nowadays. People tend to use what's handiest, since they don't want to be chained to a desk or table, and it's easier to block visibility to their phone than to a screen.
I still say: Smart Devices (of any kind) make for Dumb People.
Drink a pint of vaginal discharge, you motherfucking hideous motherfucking knob goblin.
Because we can be.Easy enough to figure out.No one is within reach to slap the shit out of you for rudeness.
Geek Hillbilly
I'm sure GIFT has been posted at least a dozen times - I checked, it was referenced a couple times on the current page, but I feel the need to reiterate. GIFT was posted in 2004. Everyone's heard of it. Legitimate studies have been done about it. (I hear some even reference it by name, which must have been fun for the academics publishing it, getting to use "Fuckwad" completely legitimately in a paper (and one that has nothing to do directly with studying the linguistics of cussing.))
Facebook may attract somewhat foul language, and people that bitch about their lives on a regular basis, but I'm not really notice people being rude towards each other.
I've never been insulted on FB, or even really felt that anyone was overly offensive. I do see people rant about their lives, but that happens in-person as well. I've dropped some people's feeds - not due to insults or such things - but more because I was tired of hearing about it every time their baby pooped, or about how vaccines are made from aborted babies, religious agenda, or other stupid crap that certain people post. Again, nothing really rude, but just stuff that I don't care about, as is more or less noise/junk to me.
So I don't know who gets insulted on facebook, but if you compare it to the sleazy anons I sometimes see on sites like /., or in online games, it's not really a comparison.
So isn't it also somewhat scary that most people apparently expect those in a guard or police-type authority situation to be power-tripping, egotistical, and sadistic?
An MIT professor says people posting on the internet have lowered inhibitions because there is no formal social interaction.
Clearly a tenured professor at the Captain Obvious Center For The Bloody Self-Evident there at MIT.
did I do it right???
On the internet, you can be whatever you want including that which you could NEVER bring yourself to be in real life (yes, this includes "online pedo/offline proud parent" types). Many choose to be rude, filth spewing slagmonkeys because they want to be.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
...that's why.
First, on-line, no one is going to punch you in the face for a rude comment. It doesn't happen much IRL, but everyone knows the possibility exists.
Second, what you say online is less likely to have social consequences because you are often conversing with people you will never meet IRL.
Third, misunderstandings happen more often online because it is easy to misinterpret quickly written posts without non-verbal communication (body language) to add clarification.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
Because, fuck you, that's why
That's why
I'm going to reply to this because even though it's satire, it's the closest major post to what I actually came to say.
Rather than blaming the dehumanizing effects of the interface, the disinhibiting effect of anonymity, or the fact that there's still no good way to punch someone over the internet, has anyone considered that the web just throws you together with people you hate a lot more often than real life does?
In waking life, people meet at places where they have to be (school or work), or through networks of people they already associate with (family and friends), and only somewhat rarely in situations where they meet people about whom they know nothing and to whom they have no social ties (bars). Even if you go someplace with a lot of strangers who all came together for some external cause (say, a concert) you never insert yourself into strangers' conversations, or listen in on them.
Online, you interact almost exclusively with people you know nothing about and only "met" online. You may share a common interest -- technology, a certain game, a fondness for goofy cat pictures -- that brought you into the same "space", but that's about it. And the medium is such that you HAVE to listen in on these people's conversation. You have to participate in their conversation to participate in your own. There's only one conversation. That's why you came to the page/board/forum.
In real life, if you realized you were talking to a person you hate, who is so annoying and antithetical to your own opinions that you just have no reason to keep listening to him, you would excuse yourself (or tell him off), then walk away. And then you're done. You never need interact with that person again, at least not beyond that across-the-room glare that says "oh, you... you're here. You stay over there, I'll stay over here." Online, you can ignore him or tell him off, but he doesn't leave the conversation. He's still there. Because it's still his conversation too. If you want to talk about news for nerds, Warhammer, or lolcats on a given board, he will continue to be there, and you will continue to piss each other off. Even if the board design lets you "ignore" him (that is, preemptively hide his posts), it may riddle your conversation with holes.
Really, your only choices are to leave, to be a little miserable every time he shows up in "your" conversation, or to tell him off so badly that he leaves once and for all. And this doesn't just go for one person. It goes for several people, on any sufficiently large site you may visit. And I think that contributes a lot to the combative nature of online discussions.
Because fuck you, that's why!
... Fuck you! That's why!
Because fuck you, that's why.
And yes this is a probably a repost of the same line, so fuck you again.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
... I thought the whole premise behind banishing annonymity and making people use real names was that it was supposed to make everyone behave courteously and politely. Hmm, this may pose a challenge... We'll probably want to develop a backup justification for why people should register accounts and use their real names online.
Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
Penny Arcade answered this question a number of years ago with a simple, but elegant, comic. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
No need for a long, drawn out, article about a study of 541 people and their love of cookies over granola bars (which are worse than cookies).
The reason people are 'ruder' on-line is that their writing skills are worse than their talking skills so more mis-interpretation happens.
A lot of people are really rude in meat space too, but there are fewer errors because folks usually speak their intentions better than they can type them.
Yet another study point out what we all already know. Christ, hasn't this effect been demonstrated enough? These researchers really need to stop wasting everybody's fucking time and focus on more important and less redundant research! Idiots...
It goes back to what Ben Franklin said: "An armed society is a polite society." There's no way to be armed on the Internet, in that you pretty much have zero recourse to reach out and "touch" someone who pisses you off. I can insult and use inflammatory language without fear that anyone I push too far will push back with anything but words, which are easily ignored (unlike a punch in the mouth, slap on the face, knife in the lung). So if Ben is right, it makes sense that the Internet would be as impolite as it is.
How is this news to anybody!?
I had more problems with the verbal form of that one!
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
Sorry but I am NOT rude online. Well at least not more than I am in real life.While i'm sure some people are like this i'm not convinced that this isn't just the way people are.
I mean, outside of places like 4chan where kids are as offensive as possible on principle alone, I don't think that a majority of people on the Internet are considerably more rude online than offline. Well, I probably know a lot of rude people offline and keep to good sites like /. when online.
Offline I know many guys who can't say two sentences without cursing, real life doesn't punish you for being rude as much as you imagine, While it's true that the Internet offers some form of release from consequences, is not like you are going to be arrested for not being nice in public.
But... the future refused to change.
When people feel the absence of consequence, they reveal who they truly are. Most people are complete assholes. Is anyone surprised? After all, there is a pretty strong, positive selection pressure among our society for sociopathy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gysGCrZTXQg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFwADg0OZso
The above video illustrates what CAN happen when an internet shit talker is discovered and confronted in real life. As many would think, said shit talkers turn out to be 130lb skinny guys who mouthed off to the wrong person online.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
My name is Kim, and, back in the 1990s, I ran one of the first TV show fan websites for my partner, who was possibly the most ardent fan of them all.
That particular show was mainly popular with females, and, surprise, most of my site's members were women and teenage girls.
It wasn't all that long before a troll showed up and did everything he could to try and disrupt things, but I kept a tight lid on it, deleting his posts, and those of anyone foolish enough to try and feed him.
Driving him was some beef he had with the show's creator and executive producer, or some other ludicrous motive, but we were about the only "weak" spot related to the show he could find (this was pre-IMDb.com), and so he vented his spleen on us.
The guy kept at it for ages - weeks, months - but couldn't get much of a bite, so he got angrier by the day, and then one day threatened to do me physical harm.
So I replied "Fine, you're welcome to try any time," assuming he was just completely full of shit.
As I had not gone out of my way to hide too much, he knew my last name - everyone on the site did - and that I was a State employee, and he knew the name and location of my partner's arts and crafts shop, because I often posted images of her work on the site.
The troll's IP address usually resolved to a Community College in a city one State over from me, but I never thought the guy would ever be stupid enough or angry enough to come looking, but I was wrong.
One afternoon, my partner called me at the office and said that some guy was in the shop, ranting, and abusing her and "dykes" in general, and demanding to see me.
So I drove over there and parked 'round the corner, then walked into the shop.
I guess the troll hadn't expected "Kim" to be a very male 6' 5 1/2" State Trooper.
We kind of missed him on the website after that. It just wasn't the same.
People are rude online because they want to be. Could there seriously be any other reason? We're not robots, we're not so simple that we automatically act different when we're using a machine, that's ridiculous.
Because, fuck you! That's why!
Nobody can punch you in the face on the internet.
...
No one else noticed that the study was done by a marketing professor from a Business School. A survey of 512 people (quite a small number really) found that those people who use the Internet on a daily basis also preferred chocolate to granola, couldn't be bothered doing complicated puzzles, and maintained a lower balance on their credit card. Therefore, using the Internet makes you a stupid, fat, poor asshole. Perhaps this isn't the most conclusive study of the lowering of inhibitions or the generation of conflict online. What it looks like to me is a well timed grab for publicity just before the business department submits its request for funding for next year.
I'm not sure this is a general truth.
Upon learning to understand Korean, I was frankly shocked when I first played Diablo 3 online here and found people to be speaking to me in a very polite, deferential way. With the standard probes for sarcasm coming up short, I learned they were in fact genuinely not being assholes.
After seeing some Korean StarCraft replays as well you can generally find people being polite to their opponents
I've been told one reason is because of the reduced physical distance between Korean speakers and the chance of having your identity discovered. However, I don't have a strong conclusion on the exact reasons for it, but I did want to point out the fact that alternative Internets exist.
AC because I'm too lazy to log in
The irony of posting this story here is pretty self-evident. Wonder what the Android fundamentalists have to say about this?
Thank You.
It is so sad to see the the improperly raised, immature abusive words written by these types of people. Including how these words make these kind of people feel powerful, when it really is just the opposite. It is a shame these types of people just don't understand & knowing the Web is for free for everyone, for all to gather knowledge & grow.
I believe in right not wrong & care not the abusive words this note may bring.
Again I say Thank You to this writer & all who write with correct words.
When seeing words on the screen, humans have not had millennia to develop 'virtual' feelings based upon reading words on the screen.
To a smaller extent with audio, but to a large extent with visual feedback, our own emotion centers -- while seeing expressions of others tries to 'imagine' what the expression means -- in doing so, there is a brief time when most people feel a little be of what the other person is feeling based on seeing their expressions.
You don't get that emphatic response with words other than on an intellectual level -- you don't *feel* it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect
Casteism
enough said in subject... Burp!!
They are rude online because they are actually all pussies. I learned you never say something about someone unless you are willing to tell them face to face. (There are exceptions, like War lords, Hell's Angel's and the like) I'm sure there are people out there who are willing to say crap about me but will never look me in the eye and say it. They know I will kick the ever living shit out of their worthless hides if they talked to me in public like that. That's what it comes down to. They are cowards.
Paul E. Bahre
...Or "Flamers". The people who make the rudest comments online (namely YouTube, for example) are cowards who want to say those things to someone's face, and wish they could, but wouldn't dare.
There have been a number of studies on the subject lately. I like the one at Scientific American about Eye Contact and body language. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=rudeness-on-the-internet Basically, you can't see the other person's reactions so you don't feel the disapproval or the societal exclusion one would normally face in a direct confrontation. It is easy to change this trend, people just have to want to change it.
And I no longer will accept low paying "support" jobs because I am on blood pressure pills and it makes them ineffective.. I still *try* to help my friends though , god help me..but my last call just cut the cord.. A "log in " issue.. Why The F**K are people SOOO stioopiud when it comes to logging into accounts they have set up? Doesn't EVERYONE know what a "password" is? and a "login ID" holy shit;.. I like my friends (i mean that's why they're my friends) but mix a few drinks and a computer (especially a Mac!) and they get REAL stupid.. I know.. Macs are "easier" to user for you and me, but not *these People*.. I don't want to kill any of my friends..( I loathe prison showers ;-).. so WHAT have any of y'all done in the same place????
David Wong wrote about this. He claims that everything you do online is filtered through your current mood.