PeonForHer
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Joined: 9/27/2008
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FR
I always did think that Internet forums were a goldmine for those wanting break into new areas with their doctoral research in Social Psychology departments. I'm copy-typing the following, so bear with me. As luck would have it, in yesterday's Observer, a huge article beginning:
"The Angry Brigade. The internet has given everyone a voice. Its potential as a libertarian force is growing all the time as social media promotes social and political activism. But it also has potential to mobilise anger online. Why does the ideal of free and open discussion sometimes descend so steeply into unseemly and savage mob rule? By Tim Adams.
. . . .
"The psychologists call it "deindividuation" [my bolds]. It's what happens when social norms are withdrawn because identities are concealed. 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 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 personal anonymity provoked individuals into breaking rules that under "normal" circumstances they would not have considered."
"Deindividuation is . . . why under the cover of an alias or an avatar on a website or a blog - surrounded by virtual strangers - conventionally restrained individuals might be moved to suggest a comedian* should suffer all manner of violent torture because they don't like his jokes, or his face.
[*The article starts with the example of Steward Lee, a comedian who'd just finished first TV series in 2009. He then went on to collate all the web comments he could find about himself. The author of the article writes, "If you read those comments now as a cumulative narrative, you begin to fear for Stewart Lee. A good third of the posts fantasised about violence being done to the comic, most of the rest could barely contain the extent of their loathing."]
. . . .
"One effect of "deindividuation is a polarisation within groups in which like-minded people typically end up in more extreme positions because they gain credibility by exaggerating loosely held prejudices. You can see that in the bloggers trying to outdo one another with pejoratives about Stewart Lee. This has the effect of shifting norms: extremism becomes acceptable. As Jaron Lanier [a 'pioneering idealist of virtual reality'] argues: 'I worry about the next generation of young people around the world growing up with internet-based technology that emphasises crowd aggregation . . . Will they be more likely to succumb to pack dynamics when they come of age?' The utopian tendency is to believe that social media pluralises and diversifies opinion; most evidence suggests that it is just as likely, when combined with anonymity, to reinforce groupthink and extremism."
The article ends with a quote from Arthur Schoepenhauer, written 160 years ago:
"Anonymity is the refuge for all literary and journalistic rascality . . . It is a practice which must be completely stopped . . . so that when a man publicly proclaims through the far-sounding trumpet of the newspaper, she should be answerable for it, at any rate with his honour, if he has any; and if he has non, let his name neutralise the effect of his words. And since even the most insignificant person is known in his own circle, the result of such a measure would be to put an end to two thirds of the newspaper lies, and to restrain the audacity of many a poisonous tongue".
Now, after all that, someone's going to tell me the frigging article's online, somewhere, aren't they? Grrr. Oh well, I needed the practice - on my shiny new netbook.
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