In lecture 3 & 4, we mainly focused on the role that phycology and cognition theory play in online social network. The content has been divided into two relative parts, and each of them provided an in-depth answer towards the following question: 1) How do people “deal with” the information having been collected? ; 2) How does the cognition process affect the construction of social network?
From the conceptual introduction in the 3 & 4 lecture as well as the real-life experience about social networking website, we could realize the strong connection between the psychology and the online behaviors. And we could also discover a series of different behavior patterns which distinguish the online behavior from that in real-life situations. Specifically, I want to leave my focal point on Cyber Disinhibition on social network.
Have you ever suffered from the guilty when you post hostile comments on forum or other social networking websites, like Facebook and twitter, under bad mood? If the answer is “yes”, you could probably wonder why you are so irritable on the Internet despite your good-temper in daily life. That is Cyber Disinhibition. Sometimes referred to as "flaming," Cyber Disinhibition is a phenomenon that can occur when a person is upset and sends an angry or other type of emotionally-charged messages on social networking website. The problem comes from the fact that all of these negative behaviors happens much more frequently than negative face-to-face interaction. Why we speak more "directly" on social networks?
The first reason is the anonymity on social network. When you move around the social network website, especially like forum and twitter, most of the people you encounter could probably be someone without any connection to you in real-life situation. If you wish, you can hide your identity, at least your real name, which works wonders for the disinhibition effect. When people have the opportunity to act without the regard to their real world and identity, they would feel less vulnerable about opening up. Whatever they say or do can't be directly linked to the rest of their lives, and they don't have to take responsibility for their hostile comments or actions, for they could convince themselves consciously that those behaviors are not from the “real me”.
Secondly, cyber disinhibition largely comes from the asynchronization in online communication. People do not interact with others right after they post their opinions. It would probably take minutes, hours, even days for one to receive the reply of his comments, including that in aggressive tone. Such delay of feedbacks sometimes contribute to an emotionally more direct expression of our true feelings, for you don’t have to confront any “counterattack” immediately towards your offenses. Post on your complains and just run away. The safe feelings of doing so would provide you a great stimulus to be more “frankly”, though sometimes detrimental to your relationships in real-life.
For the last point, the medium determines the characteristics of communication in social network. In social network website, most of human interactions was achieved in the form of message. Although most of our messages would receive their responses, the way of communication in social network would still be considered as “one-way” delivering rather than “dialoge”. When you gather your though and organize your expression, you would not receive the enough explanation or interaction from others in either facial or linguistic form. Under such condition, a conflict could sometimes be escalated with misunderstanding.
Admittedly, cyber disinhibition motivates people to expression more openly. However, sometimes, such action of showing your rudeness, harsh criticisms, anger, hatred, even threats would act as a double-edge sword. Next time before sending off a offended message, think twice and never do something leading to a later regret.
