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From: Lady Veteran <armyvet@bigtoot.com>
Newsgroups: soc.support.fat-acceptance,soc.singles,dfw.general,soc.men.alt.usenet.kooks Subject: REPOST:Study shows that Internet Trolls are not mentally healthy in real life
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Study shows that Internet Trolls are not mentally healthy in real life
The Raw Story


A new study from the University of Manitoba has shockingly claimed to
have found that the Internet trolls we all know or love so well may
not be very nice -- or particularly mentally healthy -- individuals in
real life. The study tried to explore whether or not Internet trolls
fell into the so called Dark Tetrad: Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), narcissism (egotism and
self-obsession), psychopathy (the lack of remorse and empathy), and
sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others). The study (mostly
survey, really) claims to have found:

"... correlations, sometimes quite significant, between these traits
and trolling behavior. What’s more, it also found a relationship
between all Dark Tetrad traits (except for narcissism) and the overall
time that an individual spent, per day, commenting on the Internet."
It's worth noting that the survey found, by and large, that most
people online are perfectly reasonable and decent human beings. At the
very least they're just quiet lurkers:

"To be sure, only 5.6 percent of survey respondents actually specified
that they enjoyed "trolling." By contrast, 41.3 percent of Internet
users were “non-commenters,” meaning they didn’t like engaging online
at all. So trolls are, as has often been suspected, a minority of
online commenters, and an even smaller minority of overall Internet
users."
The study appears to rely heavily on subjects pulled from Amazon's
Mechanical Turk, who may not be a good control representative of what constitutes normal behavior, either online or off. The study also
appears to be rather heavily reliant on simply asking people if they
liked to be jerks on the Internet -- which if I were an Internet
troll, I'm not sure I'd answer correctly. Reading their analysis and methodology, it's not clear to me if the researchers did (or could)
calculate how anonymity can turn a relatively normal person into a
blathering jackass (as this classic Penny Arcade comic illustrates in
deep scientific detail).

Is somebody necessarily a sadist offline because anonymity turns them
into a jerk when they're online? Isn't it possible that people act
worse online because the sense of anonymity gives them the belief
they're free from repercussion and can therefore experiment with
darker, but not necessarily dominant, aspects of their personality
they'd fear to explore offline? Wouldn't that especially be true of
children, who may express anger at their lack of power through online
rage, but develop into perfectly normal people as they age?

You can dig through the full methodology yourself, assuming you're
smart enough, professor. Those shoes make you look fat. I'd also like
to point out that the Beatles sucked, Internet Explorer is the vastly
superior browser, the RIAA makes a lot of solid points based on sound scientific data, the Comcast merger will help cure cancer and save
puppies, and my little sister is much better than you are at this
game, bro.

LV

--

"I rode a tank and held a general's rank
When the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank."

---Sympathy for the Devil-The Rolling Stones

--------------------------------------------

If you are an idiot, I am your worst nightmare.
If you are a racist, fat-basher, bible thumper
or reTHUGlican,you would do well to avoid me at
all costs.

---------------------------------------------

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