As a kind of follow-up to my post this morning, there’s a decent article in the New York Times (via Lifehacker) about online flaming. The article refers primarily to a 2004 paper by John Suler, which I downloaded yesterday from here, although I admit I haven’t read it yet. The basic idea is that online anonymity, among other factors, encourages the “online disinhibition effect“, the malign version of which results in flaming. This backs up my own untutored opinions about Digg, and a host of other sites. None of this is new, I realise, but the source material is useful nonetheless.
Suler’s book The Psychology of Cyberspace is also available for download here.
Filed under: Uncategorized
