Anonymity, Lack of Cues Lead to On-Line Stupidity

Why are people so prone to committing stupidity on electronic mail? The medium encourages it, researchers say.

There are fewer cues for proper behavior in e-mail than in face-to-face encounters, which give people a rich social context in which to frame their comments, says Sara Kiesler, a professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

A company picnic, for example, will elicit different discussion than a business meeting with suits and ties. “All these cues about how to behave aren’t present in the interface,” Kiesler said. “This absence of information tends to deregulate things.”

Electronic mail has been praised as a way to even the corporate playing field.

Status differences fade, inhibitions drop and creativity rises when everyone is reduced to words on a computer monitor.

But insults and angry language also increase. Known among computer users as “flaming,” the phenomenon appears related to the sense of anonymity that turns some usually polite people into epithet-hurling jerks when they drive down the highway.

E-mail also seems to many users like a private, fleeting form of communication, though in reality it is neither.

Finally, the most avid computer users often are male, young and socially inexperienced.

“The very guys who are most inclined to say stupid things are the most technically proficient,” attorney Michael Patrick said. “They love to get on the computer. It’s a ‘let’s go to the secret clubhouse’ mentality.”