Invisible audiences: Persistence and searchability: Disinhibition: Three teens charged in nude photo case. BY BILL DWYER November 19, 2011 2:04PM Updated: December 21, 2011 8:28AM A teen girl and two teen boys were arrested after a “lewd” photo of a naked girl was apparently shared via text messaging this week at a west suburban high school. The students at Oak Park-River Forest High School were charged with a misdemeanor count of distribution of harmful material, Oak Park Detective Cmdr. Ladon Reynolds said.
School officials say a parent of a student reported that another student was sharing a naked picture of another student. Foran said the conduct could also result in a 10-day school suspension. Officials said the photo may be as old as two years and it’s believed it was forwarded from one boy to another. “Sexting” has become a common problem at several area school districts, including in northwest suburban Algonquin, where the district in July prohibited students from creating and distributing material that was “socially inappropriate or inappropriate due to maturity level of students.” The Psychology of Online Comments. Several weeks ago, on September 24th, Popular Science announced that it would banish comments from its Web site.
The editors argued that Internet comments, particularly anonymous ones, undermine the integrity of science and lead to a culture of aggression and mockery that hinders substantive discourse. “Even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader’s perception of a story,” wrote the online-content director Suzanne LaBarre, citing a recent study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison as evidence.
While it’s tempting to blame the Internet, incendiary rhetoric has long been a mainstay of public discourse. Cicero, for one, openly called Mark Antony a “public prostitute,” concluding, “but let us say no more of your profligacy and debauchery.” What, then, has changed with the advent of online comments? Anonymity, for one thing. Maria Konnikova is the author of the New York Times best-seller “Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes.”
Online disinhibition and the psychology of trolling. In everyday life, decorum dictates that certain things just don't happen. Funerals, even for divisive figures tend to go by with solemn respect. Compare this with a recent example of online trolling at its most extreme: In 2011, a Reading man was jailed for raiding the Facebook tribute pages of a 14 year old girl who had committed suicide, filling it with crass jokes and insults. He had never met the girl in question. That's an extreme example, but it's a phenomenon almost as old as the internet itself: trolling. Examples of trolling range from the above to the extremely mild winding up of people to draw a reaction. Common wisdom dictates that people are more aggressive, rude and forthright online because they're anonymous and can act as unpleasantly as they like without immediate consequence.
Psychologist John Suller wrote a paper on this in 2004, entitled "The Online Disinhibition Effect", where he explored six factors that could combine to change people's behaviour online. Internet Disinhibition. Internet Disinhibition or online disinhibition effect is a psychological phenomenon which refers to the way people behave on the Internet with less inhibitions than in real-world situations. Social restrictions and barriers become virtual with the web and creates a stronger emotional behaviour. Some internet users will express their love and positive feelings in a stronger manner than in real life; this is called benign disinhibition. On the other hand, some internet users will express anger and hatred in a more intensive way; this is called toxic disinhibition.
Let’s have a closer look to the second effect, the toxic disinhibition. It has become obvious that the internet is generating more and more “trash content“, following the same path as the TV industry. It is when it threatens people’s life. A recent case took place in Thailand. It is a bit scary to see how this phenomenon is increasing and will keep doing so until somebody finally decides to unplug the big machine.