sandy
02-21-2007, 09:10 AM
Why do people do it? Easier to personal attack than discuss an issue? Easier to personal attack than try to understand the person? :2gunsfiri
"Flaming has a technical name, the “online disinhibition effect,” which psychologists apply to the many ways people behave with less restraint in cyberspace.
Several psychological factors lead to online disinhibition: the anonymity of a Web pseudonym; invisibility to others; the time lag between sending messages and getting feedback; the exaggerated sense of self from being alone; and the lack of any online authority figure. Disinhibition can be either benign — when a shy person feels free to open up online — or toxic, as in flaming.:lsvader:
If we are typing while agitated, the absence of information on how the other person is responding makes the prefrontal circuitry for discretion more likely to fail. Our emotional impulses disinhibited, we type some infelicitous message and hit “send” before a more sober second thought leads us to hit “discard.” We flame.':flamethro
There's an absolutely fascinating article in the NY Times about actual brain function during flaming.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/health/psychology/20essa.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
"Flaming has a technical name, the “online disinhibition effect,” which psychologists apply to the many ways people behave with less restraint in cyberspace.
Several psychological factors lead to online disinhibition: the anonymity of a Web pseudonym; invisibility to others; the time lag between sending messages and getting feedback; the exaggerated sense of self from being alone; and the lack of any online authority figure. Disinhibition can be either benign — when a shy person feels free to open up online — or toxic, as in flaming.:lsvader:
If we are typing while agitated, the absence of information on how the other person is responding makes the prefrontal circuitry for discretion more likely to fail. Our emotional impulses disinhibited, we type some infelicitous message and hit “send” before a more sober second thought leads us to hit “discard.” We flame.':flamethro
There's an absolutely fascinating article in the NY Times about actual brain function during flaming.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/health/psychology/20essa.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin