I was recently asked to comment on the news story about the online suicide of Abraham Biggs. Although it is clear that Mr. Biggs was a long suffering victim of bipolar depression, and that a taste of the macabre has clearly driven our interest in this story, I think it does Mr. Biggs no dishonor to ask ourselves - what does this incident reveal about social behavior online and about human nature?
Below are the comments that I sent to the reporter in entirety.
A basic assumption of Psychster Inc., our research and consulting firm dedicated to the psychology of social media, is that people are people both online and offline. So we should expect the full array of human tendencies constructive, destructive, pro-social, anti-social, conservative, and risky - to be expressed in social media as they are in any other arena of social life. That said, some aspects of online environments enable anti-social tendencies more so than historic, face-to-face environments. These relate to your questions.
First, social media allows us to view and even interact with others under the buffer of a computer interface. This produces de-individuation (Festinger, 1952; Milgram, 1962; Zimbardo, 1969) which is a sense of psychological distance from others and a loss of personal accountability that can produce radical behaviors. I suspect that the woman who twittered about hurting her child did not feel as much of a sense of personal accountability as she would if she expressed the same thoughts to others face-to-face. Interestingly, de-individuation can happen even if people are not anonymous (like on Facebook where people use their real names) and regardless of the number of onlookers (which explains our shock, for example, that Abraham Biggs would post his tragic video online despite the potential for millions of people to see it.)
Second, social media allows for many-to-many communication through features like boards, comments, and blogs. This form of communication is an essential element for group polarization to occur (Moscovici & Zavalloni, 1969), which is when people in groups express more radical views than their individual members would in isolation. Those who urged Abraham Biggs on by posting comments that everyone could see were likely responding to group polarization.
Third, social media allows us to spread our name and ideas far more globally than was previously possible. Thus people often use social media to strive for memetic fitness (Dawkins, 1989) which is the propagation of ones ideas in a population almost synonymous with fame. In some circumstances, people will strive to be remembered even at the cost of longevity or children. Unfortunately, radical actions often spread through the internet as far as rare talents or accomplishments, which creates a powerful motivator for people to post them online.
Summary. Others radical actions are no less alarming or disturbing when we encounter them online versus anywhere else. And human nature will always perplex and shock us whether it plays out online or offline. But we should realize that some features of social media make a fertile environment for the expression of radial views and behaviors. Social media makes people feel a sense of psychological distance from others. It allows for many-to-many communication which has long been known to make people express radical views. And the internet can can bring people who post radical actions global attention, which creates a strong motivator for them to do so.
The new media for social behavior is like a new volcanic island in the ocean that is being populated by plants and animals although there will be a slight evolution in how things look and act, the basic form will reflect its origins.
So rather than asking how social media might be changing us, I think a better question is what does social media reveal about us? And the answer, I suspect, will be the same one that the social sciences and humanities have known all along, that we are a mix of both magnanimity and the macabre.
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