4 ms·

The article seems to just use fancy words to say "because they're assholes".

• 0xdeadb00f 6y ago
  I was going to say "because it's fun"
• dragontamer 6y ago
  That's a bit of a simplification, isn't it? Here's the first major point of the article > The human brain was primarily designed for face-to-face interaction. It hasn’t had time to adapt to communication over the internet. > If you say something mean to my face and make me cry, you will probably start to feel uncomfortable. Unless you’re especially mean or psychopathic, my distress will trigger an empathic response and lead you to have mercy. If you tweet something mean and make me cry, no amount of emojis can convey what the sight of a grown man weeping can. If there is no social cue to elicit an empathic response, you might continue your tirade of meanness. > The absence of nonverbal feedback leads to an “empathy deficit,” and this is what sociopaths suffer from. ----------- So the first point made by the article is about the lack of instinctive empathy offered by the online environment. Without a face to see how the other person is reacting, we're blind to the subtle clues about their emotion.
  • Udik 6y ago
    > The human brain was primarily designed for face-to-face interaction In fairness this seems vague and simplistic. I would argue that people have always behaved like this when they were anonymous (and therefore free from the consequences of their actions). This Fellini movie clip (I Vitelloni) predates the internet by several decades and yet shows an egregious example of trolling: https://youtu.be/nVQV3WEoQDU https://youtu.be/nVQV3WEoQDU (the initial line is simply "workeeers! Prrrr")