PROFESSOR Mark Griffiths, psychologist at Nottingham Trent University, explains why online interactions can turn nasty
One of the main reasons why behaviour online is very different from it offline is because it provides what we psychologists call a 'disinhibiting' experience. This is where people lower their emotional guard and become much less inhibited in their actions. The main reason for this is because when people are interacting with others online it is not face-to-face, it is perceived as a very anonymous environment, and it is non-threatening.
On the positive side, this disinhibition process can lead people to develop deep and complex emotional attachments and even fall in love online. On the negative side, people may carry out behaviours online that they would never dream of doing offline including criminal behaviour such as cyber-bullying.
Research here in the UK and US has shown that about 10% of children and teenagers have been cyber-bullied in the previous month (across all technological media including social media) with about one in six children being cyber-bullied at least once in their lifetime. As children get older the incidence of cyberbullying increases as a greater proportion of older children have access to mobile phones and the internet.
Some studies have shown as many as 95% of teenagers on social networking sites have witnessed cruel behaviour. Among teenagers, some research appears to suggest that online cyberbullies are slightly more likely to be girls than boys although findings are a little inconsistent.