Anonymity Of The Internet And Monstrous Behaviour
The anonymity of the internet is to blame for the rise in online trolls targeting women because it has removed natural constraints on "monstrous" behaviour, a leading neurologist has suggested.Baroness Susan Greenfield, a professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, said humans had evolved a "handbrake" to stop them disclosing all their thoughts in real life.
But, she argued, while the physical "constraints" of body language protect them from sharing "monstrous" thoughts in real life, it no longer applies from behind a screen.
Instead, a lack of empathy from the anonymity of the internet has now led to "appalling behaviour", with keyboard warriors issuing rape threats, bomb threats, and showing the "worst side of human nature".
Earlier this month, MP Stella Creasy, campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, classicist Professor Mary Beard, and female journalists were the subject of rape and bomb threats on Twitter, while teenager Hannah Smith is reported to have committed suicide after being bullied online.
Baroness Greenfield told an audience the computer screen had given "spiteful people" a new means of expression without normal social concerns.
She said: "Of course there's always been bullying, there's always been spiteful people.
But until the screen gave a platform and the cyberworld gave them a means of expression and an anonymity, we have always been constrained."
"What biology has done, and this is very clever, is that we have body language, we have eye contact, and voice tone, and blushing and so on.
Biology has done this because the human tendency is to self-disclose about everything all the time, as an antidote to loneliness and its good for your health.
But we need to be constrained because if you do that unconditionally to anyone, potentially they can manipulate you; they can have power."
"So what has happened is that we've developed a handbrake.
If you don't have that biological handbrake - the eye contact, the body language, the blushing, the voice tone - it gives you slowly the confidence and the proof that you can disclose to someone else."
She added: "If you let it all hang on, then I'm afraid we have the problem of the monstrous things people are saying online, when they have the anonymity of the blogosphere.
It's not that the blogosphere is making people like that; it's like Lord of the Flies. It's giving people the chance to express the worst side of human nature which is normally constrained by body language."
Comments (10)
And Snowden, an example of being able to put out anything whether it is desirable and or harmful and injurious activities is shielded by the facelessness of the web. It is scary and we just have to be aware and be keen but in all its negative effect, I'd take the benefits it provides.
Nice awareness blog JB
I am aware of that blogger...I thought the mods would have deleted the comment...very upsetting for the OP...really sad...
Thanks for your comment.
I agree that a person can be abusive to another even in "face to face" interaction and it may be advisable to avoid such a person. However, I think that it is more likely for a person to be abusive to another in anonymous internet interaction than in "face to face" interaction because they are "less visible".
take it easy... they are just another nobody wants me club...
You are young...and able to jest...others are actually trying to find a significant other...no disrespect to you and your mission...but it actualy is a problem for others...those that pray on the weak...it leaves a horrinble result...
it happened in my home town...she did not deserve that...too late...she's gone...