TDL Brief: Online Toxicity
Connect with people anywhere in the world, we have access to more knowledge than we could ever consume, and from gaming to Netflix, we have unlimited avenues of entertainment. Why, then, does the Internet – a force for social connection, knowledge, and entertainment – breed a culture of negativity?
The term “online toxicity” encompasses rude, aggressive, and degrading attitudes and behavior that are exhibited on online platforms. It can range from excessive use of profanity to outright hate speech. It is generally observed in the context of online interactions between one or more individuals. The prevalence of the issue, coupled with its potentially detrimental consequences, has led to increasing concern in the past few years. A starting point for addressing this negative behavior has been to ask why it occurs in the first place. From there, behavioral scientists have attempted to develop interventions to cut it off. We still have a long way to go in that regard, with online toxicity running rampant on social media and in online gaming communities. However, through increased awareness of the consequences of toxic behavior and interventions based on screening algorithms and behavioral science, progress has been made.
References
- Suler, J. (2004). The Online Disinhibition Effect. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 7(3), 321-326. DOI: 10.1089/1094931041291295
- Shen, C., Sun, Q., Kim, T., Wolff, G., Ratan, R., and Williams, D. (2020). Viral vitriol: Predictors and contagion of online toxicity in World of Tanks. Computers in Human Behavior, 108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106343
- Leetaru, K. (2019). “Is it Actually Possible to Solve Online Toxicity?”. Forbes.com. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2019/06/13/is-it-actually-possible-to-solve-online-toxicity/?sh=670be169686c
- Soderberg-Rivkin, D. (2020). How Riot Games Used Behavioral Science to Curb League of Legends Toxicity. SpectrumLabsAI.com. https://www.spectrumlabsai.com/the-blog/how-riot-games-is-used-behavior-science-to-curb-league-of-legends-toxicity
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Dr. Sekoul Krastev is a decision scientist and Co-Founder of The Decision Lab, one of the world's leading behavioral science consultancies. His team works with large organizations—Fortune 500 companies, governments, foundations and supernationals—to apply behavioral science and decision theory for social good. He holds a PhD in neuroscience from McGill University and is currently a visiting scholar at NYU. His work has been featured in academic journals as well as in The New York Times, Forbes, and Bloomberg. He is also the author of Intention (Wiley, 2024), a bestselling book on the science of human agency. Before founding The Decision Lab, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group and Google.
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