I'm struck by the new media landscape and how social media shapes just about everything we take in as news and also our interactions with one another.
But this new social media landscape has a dark side.
One needs only to start reading the comments for just about any news story or article and they will quickly see (usually within 3 comments) how people resort to name calling, demagoguery, or just plain rudeness. Read the comments on just about any YouTube video and you will quickly see the dark side of human nature emerge, complete with cursing, name calling, and incivility. Most of these people who never speak or behave in such a manner in the virtual world if they were speaking to the person face-to-face or across the table from them. Why, then, does the illusion of anonymity bring out the worst in human behavior online?
Does social media actually elicit antisocial behavior?
