People react less strongly to malicious speech on digital platforms, believing that such abuses on social media cause less harm than in face-to-face interactions, a study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science has found.
From online forums to community groups, research and experience shows people are more willing to insult and use menacing language online than in person, especially when there's the protection of anonymity behind a computer.
Lead author of the study, Curtis Puryear, from University of South Florida in the US, said,
Researchers tested people's reactions to negative comments and situations through four studies, examining reactions to malicious comments made in face-to-face and various online environments.
In one study of 270 students, people saw an image of someone participating in “nerd culture” with a comment of “go back to your mommy's basement nerd” in one of three environments: face-to-face; online with social information, such as names and photos, or online with little social information.
In another study, of 283 people, participants read a remark insulting a woman for making a comment about infrastructure, and were presented with the negative comment being made on an online forum with little social information or as taking place at a public event.
Comparing the digital environments, they found mixed results. The presence of more social information, from names to photos, brought about more reactions to inflammatory comments.
However, even when people are identifiable, they found initial evidence that inflammatory speech is less shocking in digital contexts.
The cues that help to identify people as individuals can be dulled in the online environment, suggests Puryear.
Another part of the dulled reactions to comments comes from what one could describe as “numbing” either through the sheer volume of reports of harassment online, or from over-exposure of online harassment.
The results depend on how we shape our online communities, researchers said.
Building digital platforms that de-personalise users and foster norms accepting of malicious speech may increasingly dull our responses to victimisation.
“But if our norms and expectations begin to reflect that digital words really do matter then the disparity between how we react to victimisation in digital and physical space may fade,” said Puryear.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)