The rapid evolution of the internet has led to a culture of anonymity and aggression. Misinformation spreads recklessly, and anonymity allows people to slander others without accountability. The rise of individualism and the deformation of the sense of community have also contributed to this phenomenon.
The most controversial and persistent of these is the so-called “flaming” culture. The commenting function, which allows you to express your thoughts on an internet post, was originally intended to be a way to share opinions and communicate. However, instead of expressing your point of view, some commenters simply post malicious slander, which is what we call flaming. Serious abuse is often directed at socially active celebrities, which has led to suicides and severe depression. It’s not uncommon to see people pick sides in the comments of even the most mundane news stories. Why has the internet become such an aggressive place? When did these problems start?
The internet in the 1990s was a much different place than it is today. In the early 90s, the online world was a place where civility was valued, just as it is in real life. The internet was very slow, and the number of people you could communicate with was limited. Even when people did meet other people in distant locations, they usually communicated by phone or handwritten letters. Despite the anonymity, there wasn’t much of a gap between the internet and the real world; it was simply a wider meeting place. Today, however, the internet has become a place where people attack each other at every turn.
The reasons for this trend can be summarized in two ways. First, the Internet has changed, and second, individuals have changed. Over the past 20 years, the Internet has evolved dramatically. The biggest change has been the increase in internet speed. This increase in speed has allowed for a huge influx of information, which is starting to cause problems. As a result, inappropriate information and violent content was exposed to people without proper censorship, and people gradually became desensitized to it. Over time, the internet has become flooded with more offensive and provocative information, and people have become desensitized to this environment and ignore it.
There is also a lack of vigilance against misinformation spreading on the internet. People often believe unverified information from faceless, nameless strangers as fact, especially if it’s sensationalized, and it spreads rapidly by word of mouth. As a result, people accept misinformation as fact and build their own knowledge base on it. This phenomenon especially affects young people. Their sense of self and position is not yet established, and they are easily influenced by misinformation, which can lead to confusion and irrational claims.
Anonymity is also an important issue. Anonymity creates a thick wall between people. People don’t feel responsible for how their comments affect others. This has led to people becoming increasingly abrasive online, and with no constraints on their behavior, they are more willing to say things that hurt others.
Changes in individual perceptions also play a role. For example, Korea has always had a culture that emphasizes politeness, to the point where it is often referred to as the polite country of the East. However, with the influx of Western culture and the spread of individualism, many people have begun to feel uncomfortable with being polite. Furthermore, some people have come to view being polite on the internet as a pretentious act; they feel that they need to let off steam online, and this trend has led to a growing number of people becoming less polite online.
The lack of civility in conversations has also led to people not listening to what the other person has to say and simply asserting what they know. They argue from uncertain knowledge gleaned from the internet, and when it’s pointed out to them that they’re wrong, they dismiss it as simple hatred. As a result, they believe what they know is the truth, and blindly criticize those who disagree.
In addition to this change in perception, a distorted sense of community also fuels people’s aggressive behavior on the internet. A sense of community is the bond that members feel within a community and the efforts they make to maintain it. In the past, Korea considered itself as one big community, and it was considered a virtue to live together and help each other. However, as the use of the internet increased, many smaller communities began to form, and conflicts arose between them. In these conflicts, communities became more and more exclusive, often slandering other communities or even antagonizing their members.
This has transformed the sense of community from seeing the whole country as one community to seeing only the small community to which one belongs as a community. Over time, this antagonism intensified, and clashes between communities became more frequent. Furthermore, even people who don’t belong to a particular community began to be divided into two sides, either in favor of or against an opinion. This distorted sense of community has turned the internet into a space of confrontation.
In addition, the times have also influenced this phenomenon. In popular media such as TV, people who are abusive and use foul language are often portrayed as humorous or cool. However, this is mostly limited to scripted situations, and it’s not something that would work in real life. However, this behavior is often seen as cool by young people, and they are increasingly modeling it in real life.
