An interesting article over at Vox.com explores just why we can be so mean online.
“If a source of our moral outrage is a desire to advertise our own goodness, then that helps us understand why oftentimes our moral outrage goes off the tracks,” David Rand, the senior research on Jordan’s experiment, says.
The internet has a way of taking our evolution-derived instincts and kicking them into hyperdrive. Twitter is like a Skinner box (think rats pushing a lever for a reward) for the joys of public shaming. We can keep pressing the lever without any real fear of retaliation. When the Justine Saccos of the world drop a misguided comment in Twitter, that’s an easy opportunity for thousands to get some morality points.
Read the whole thing. There are several hypotheses worth exploring. Clearly something needs to change.