Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

One of the effects of the Internet is to allow people who are,
perhaps, alienated or isolated in their physical space to discover or
feels comfortable in a way that their actual surroundings do not.
It’s possible to create maps of these neighborhoods, and
interestingly, they are quite insular. There are largely self-contained
regions of cyberspace where likeminded people link, talk, and refer
to others only within their areas of interest. These are intellectually
gated communities where users spend time only with people who
share their interests and biases.
One result of this e-balkanization is an increase in .
This term describes a phenomenon in which people in a
heterogeneous group with differing opinions on a given matter
arrive at a moderated consensus. Some people in the group
with strong opinions will disagree with one another, but the
overall effect will be one of moderation.
But in homogenous groups, group sentiment tends toward the
extreme, often with the group ending up more extreme than
most or all of its members. The resulting positions or decisions
will be more risky, excessive, aggressive, or punitive than
would be the case if the members were to decide on a given
issue before engaging with one another.
This has added to a second element of online life: perceived
anonymity. One effect of believing that no one knows who
you are is disinhibition, the idea that when we think we are
invisible, we are willing to do things we would never consider
doing if we thought people were watching.
When we combine online disinhibition with the extremism that
comes from group polarization, the results can be disturbing.
Indeed, online social interactions are often less civil than those
in the face-to-face physical world.
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