Online Jerks

I'm pretty sure anyone who has ever played an online game has at some point had some sort of extremely negative interaction with another player.  If you're like me, those interactions were enough to cause you to shy completely away from multiplayer games.  But why do people act like such jerks when they're online?  Is our world populated with nerdragers, ragequitters, and trolls?  I don't think so.

The article/blog entry that sparked my thoughts about this issue alleges that video games are making people into sociopaths (read it here).  In it the author explains that behavior in online games is so horrible it's almost sociopathic.  He also refers to several interesting cases where it appears that games were the source of some disturbing real-life criminal actions (like a village in the Philippines that banned DoTA after a string of stabbings or the trend of "swatting").  I would agree with him that behavior in online games can be extremely negative but I think the stabbings and "swatting" incidents are very rare.

I think people act like jerks online because it's just way too easy to hide behind an anonymous avatar.  Unless you've set up your account to be linked to your personal identity no one actually knows who you are.  This is great if you're trying to just kick back and relax.  As a high school teacher and gamer I enjoy the fact that I don't have to worry about running into any of my students while in a game.  It's not like my behavior is so horrible that I worry about what they will think but it's more of a privacy thing.  I enjoy having my space away from them when I'm not at work.

Anonymity is a double-edged sword--the privacy part is nice but what's to stop you from acting like an idiot?  You don't know any of the people you're playing with so calling them names or generally being a jerk has very few repercussions.  Sure someone can report you but what are they going to do?  Ban you for a few hours?  We all know that actually removing the jerks from a game is rare.  I also think that games remove you from the emotional consequences of the things you say in-game.  You don't get to see someone get upset over something that's said or done in a game where in real-life you can see that person's face and have to deal with the pain you've caused them.

If people acted like they do while they're playing online games our world would be filled with a lot of angry, screaming, quitting people.  I don't think people normally act like this.  For some video games are a cathartic experience--a way to blow off steam or relax after a stressful day of work.  I'm sure many of those frustrations come out in-game.

In short, I don't think video games are creating millions of sociopaths with no emotions or connection to the rest of humanity.  I think many online games offer the perfect environment in which to flex your jerk muscles--maybe the solution is that your real identity is linked to your in-game characters?  Would that be enough of a deterrent?  Would that just create more problems?  Maybe the people running these games need to take a tougher stance?  I don't know that there's an easy solution to get rid of the truly horrible behavior that takes place online.