If you’ve ever scrolled through the comment sections of controversial articles, or waded through Twitter threads on . . . well, anything . . . you’ve surely come across several online trolls.
A new study looked into it and found that people DON’T become nastier on the internet just because they’re anonymous.
Instead, it found that jerks on the internet are actually jerks ALL the time, including in real life. The internet is just a massive megaphone for them, and it makes them MORE visible than in real life.
Naturally, the researchers honed in on politics. The data showed that the jerks in those threads were predisposed to aggressive, status-seeking behavior, and people who are mean to you online would be equally mean to you offline, face-to-face.
It’s worth pointing out that the study focused on real people and didn’t address the FAKE accounts by trolls who are deliberately working to stoke tensions.
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