China Posted August 29, 2021 Share Posted August 29, 2021 Online Trolls Actually Just Assholes All the Time, Study Finds The internet doesn’t turn people into assholes so much as it acts as a massive megaphone for existing ones, according to work by researchers at Aarhus University. In a study published in the American Political Science Review, the researchers used representative surveys and behavioral studies from the U.S. and Denmark to establish the reason why people broadly perceive the online environment as more hostile than offline interaction. A pre-print version of the article is available here. The team considered the mismatch hypothesis, which in the context of online behavior refers to the theory that there is a conflict between human adaptation for face-to-face interpersonal interaction and the newer, impersonal online environment. That hypothesis more or less amounts to the idea that humans who would be nicer to each other in person might feel more inclined to get nasty when interacting with other pseudonymous internet users. The researchers found little evidence for that. Instead, their data pointed to online interactions largely mirroring offline behavior, with people predisposed to aggressive, status-seeking behavior just as unpleasant in person as behind a veil of online anonymity, and choosing to be jerks as part of a deliberate strategy rather than as a consequence of the format involved. They also found some evidence that less hostile people simply aren’t as interested in talking about politics on the internet. These results were similar in both the U.S. and Denmark, even though the two countries have very different political cultures with differing levels of polarization. (For example, a hostile far-right mob organized on social media didn’t recently storm the Danish Parliament.) Click on the link for the full article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PleaseBlitz Posted August 29, 2021 Share Posted August 29, 2021 Assholes and cowards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Sisko Posted August 30, 2021 Share Posted August 30, 2021 This story almost makes me wish a certain poster hadn’t gotten a “Hi there”. Emphasis on almost.😃 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcsluggo Posted August 30, 2021 Share Posted August 30, 2021 i am sure it is both. Assholes are assholes everywhere.... assholes are also bigger assholes when they can get away with doing so... 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK Posted August 30, 2021 Share Posted August 30, 2021 Just now, ExtremeSkins Staff said: No ****. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted August 31, 2021 Share Posted August 31, 2021 1 hour ago, mcsluggo said: i am sure it is both. Assholes are assholes everywhere.... assholes are also bigger assholes when they can get away with doing so... . . . see: Trump, Donald. 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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