Blog Essay

            My research paper focused on the effects on anonymity on human behavior on the internet.
The results of my research found that generally anonymity helped foster participation, but much of it was spent breaking down whether this participation was good or bad. Initially, my research suggested that there was no definitive effect of anonymity. However, after useful feedback from Professor Graf in the comments on my paper, including pointing me to some useful studies, I came to a more definitive conclusion on anonymity and its impacts.

            Given that it is generally understood that anonymity increases general participation, this essay is going to focus on breaking down how it influences action positively and negatively. John Suler, Ph.D. described this phenomena as the Online Disinhibition Effect. Essentially, anonymity breaks down people’s inhibitions, meaning they are more likely to do and say things they wouldn’t in a face-to-face interaction. Online Disinhibition manifests itself both positively and negatively. Suler describes the negative incarnation of the effect toxic disinhibition. Toxic disinhibition, according to Suler, results in anger, hatred, and threats. (Suler, 2004) In real life, this manifests itself in the form of internet trolls. A clear case study of this is 4chan’s sub-message board “/b/.” Those familiar with internet culture are likely familiar with the content of /b/. If not, it isn’t pretty. Posts in /b/ tend to be intentionally offensive, often times racist, sexist, and homophobic. 4chan allows anonymous posting, so it isn’t surprising to discover that a sizable number, just over 90%, of posts in /b/ tend to be posted by anonymous users. (Bernstein et al., 2011) The content on /b/ contains things very few people would say in real life, meaning that the anonymity inherent to 4chan likely has allowed /b/ to thrive.

            Suler juxtaposes toxic disinhibition with benign disinhibition. Suler claims that users who experience benign disinhibition tend to share more personal information (secrets, fears, desires, etc.) and are more willing to engage in unusual acts of kindness and generosity. (Suler, 2004) Sharing more information isn’t inherently positive, but is an interesting consequence. Alternatively, kindness and generosity tend to be positive outcomes. Sticking to the topic of social media-like message boards, benign disinhibition can be seen quite often on forums such as Reddit. A great example of this is the Subreddit, Random Acts of… This Subreddit presents opportunities for people in need to make requests of others, and for others to fulfill those requests anonymously. An example of this occurs every winter with Random Acts of Christmas, where users purchase gifts for families who are having financial difficulties. These gifts came in the form of money, or fulfilling wishes of these less privileged children, be that gifts or another particular task. (Reddit 2014) This may partially be due to the convenience that the internet presents with only having to click a few buttons, but given that the donators also do not need to present their face while doing this, it can help quell fears of having to show up in person to achieve such a task. On top of this, a summary of anonymity research across a set of academic fields found that anonymity tends to help promote the voices of more marginalized groups as well, a benefit that cannot go unrecognized. (Scott et al. 2011)