Web Communication - Rude, Crude and Socially Unaceptable!

I found a really insightful essay in the New York Times by Daniel Coleman. The article deals with online behavior and in particular "flaming" before thinking in online communication venues. After all, we have all been exposed to rude and antisocial behavior from other people since we first ventured here.

In fact, offensive messages seem to plague every dialogue we enter into, and often comments that are not meant to be offensive can easily be taken badly. The "flaming" phenomena actually has a technical name, it is known as the "online disinhibition effect."

According to the essay, in 2004 an article in the CyberPsychology & Behavior suggested that several psychological factors lead to online disinhibition: the anonymity of a Web pseudonym; invisibility to others; the time lag between sending an email message and getting feedback; the exaggerated send of self from being alone; and the lack of any online authority figure. Dr. John Sujler, psychologist at Rider University concludes that this effect can either be benign - as when a shy person opens up online, or toxic - when more aggressive people become uninhibited.

There is an emerging field called social neuroscience, which studies what goes in the brains and bodies between interacting people. This field offers clues into what exactly goes in to "flaming."

There appear to be some flaws in the inherent interface between the brain's social circuitry and the online world. In face-to-face interaction, the brain reads a continual cascade of emotional signs and social cues, instantaneously using them to guide our next move to effect good encounters. Most of this social guidance occurs in circuitry centered on the orbitofrontal cortex, or center for empathy. This center works to ensure that interactions are kept on track.

Research by Jennifer Beer, a psychologist at the University of California, showed that the face-to-face guidance system inhibits impulses for actions that would upset other people to throw interaction off. Neurological patients with a damaged orbitofrontal cortex lose their ability to modulate the amygdala, a source of unruly impulses like small children exhibit.

Socially artful responses are largely a function of neural chatter between the orbitofrontal cortex and emotional centers like the amygdale that generate impulsive behavior. The cortex needs social information - a change in voice or tone - to know how to select and channel impulses. In emails or chat rooms there are no channels for voice, facial expression or other cues from the person on the receiving end of textual communication. We do have cute emoticons to add punctuation and simulate emotion, but these rather lame icons lack the neural impact or an actual smile or frown. Essentially, the cortex has so little to go one in these types of communications that people are much too easily misread and misunderstood.

I have often misunderstood comments by other people. Sometimes it is simple to identify really young Internet users, as they often display this "flaming" mentality. It is a rather accepted thing now in forums, blogs; IM's and in chat modules. I must admit that oftentimes I have felt insulted by the lag in communication or with textual cues that appeared to be negative. I am sure the reverse is true for people on the receiving end of my messages too. I think that the advent of video chat and other more advanced communication modules will help this tendency, but we may feel even more insulted when the other person steps away to make a sandwich and does not come back for 30 minutes.

This essay really just fortifies what we knew all long about Internet communality. A good deal of misunderstanding can be avoided by entering into conversations with intelligent beings in my opinion. In the final analysis, we should be kind, understanding and patient with one another. I for one, always attempt to be courteous and to explain my comments so that other people's feeling will not be infringed upon.

Let Web 2.0 be about understanding, learning and a higher order of human interaction. Think about hitting the send button before insulting or inflaming your conversations! Be polite, it does not kill! The emoticon below does not fully represent how being flamed makes one feel, and besides this little guy can't choke the breath out of you yet.