Initially, I was interested in understanding how being anonymous on the web affects the behaviour patterns of individuals. However, upon further inspection, I found that it’s important that people perceive that they are anonymous. Whether they truly are or not is not nearly as relevant as whether or not they feel that they are. When people feel that they are in an environment where their actions can easily be tracked back to their true identity, especially with legal ramifications in mind, they tend to act differently than they normally would.
I want to know if online environments where people feel as though their identity is well hidden are more likely to inspire users to display negative characteristics and behaviours.
Secondarily, I would like to know if people consider the personalities of others in the online environment to be genuine or fictional.
In my preliminary searches for similar research, I found that most of the current research revolves around the legal impact of anonymity or the lack thereof. There was one rather interesting article from 2020 in which Guo and Yu studied the connection between online anonymity and discipline, which was very similar to the research that I am interested in.
I intend to start my search with the Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection database. This database will help to understand the actual behaviours exhibited and the reasoning behind it, to an extent.
I’m also interested in using the Computer Source database. This is because I want to see if there is precedence in systems being abused through anonymous usage structures.
Lastly, I want to dive into Nexis Uni to further explore what has been discovered in the legal field. If there are cases that deal specifically with the abuse of online anonymity, that might be related to my research idea.
Reference:
Guo, K., & Yu, X. (2020). The anonymous online self: Toward an understanding of the tension between discipline and online anonymity. Information Systems Journal (Oxford, England), 30(1), 48-69.
Interesting topic. It’s interesting to what people will say to others behind the safety of anonymity. I really wonder how those same people would act if they had the same conversation face to face.
An interesting experiment would be to have a group discuss politics via a message board. Then have the same group discuss the same topic in person.
Hello Fin! I think you have picked a great topic. The topic idea is explained very well and it would be interesting to see what the results of such a study would consist of. When people know of their anonymity on the web it could have effects on their activity. It would also be interesting to know what everyday people interested in web anonymity consider anonymous based on their own perceptions, as you touched on.
What would you measure with this research and how would you do it out of curiosity. Would you take a server online to question users on how they feel or would you take another approach by comparing two groups of people one anonymous and another who is not. How would you compare their behaviors? Not to say this a bad topic and this topic is well researched but I find the data rather hard to replicate and measure. A good back up would be the political and ethical method or reducing or eliminating anonymity from the internet. Then measure policies in America compared to other countries. That rate people based on emotional responses.
Joshua, Once you judged which sites provide more anonymity and which didn’t, it would simply be a matter of coding the comments for negative/positive feedback to see if less anonymous leads to fewer negative comments.
Hello Fin, I think that this is a great topic! I am extremely interested in this topic and have always wondered about it while surfing through comments on Facebook. When people think that they are anonymous they tend to say things that they would not if they were face to face. Good luck with the rest of your assignment!
Be sure to check the Communication/Media databases, if you haven’t yet. I know a number of media scholars have looked into the topic you are interested in.