How has the role of anonymity impacted computer mediated communication?
There have been many times I have written an e-mail to a person or sent a text message to a co-worker that I would have never said to their face. I felt uninhibited because I was anonymous. I wasn’t standing in front of them. The e-mail or text wasn’t rude or offensive. Sometimes it was just an idea or information that might benefit the project. Has the use of computer mediated communication altered my personality? Have I become more creative and less inhibited?
According to dictionary.com, anonymous is defined as without any name acknowledged, as that of author, contributor, or the like. Well, in my case the recipient knew exactly who it was from. But anonymous defined by the dictionary and how it is used for academic purposes are much different. According to Thurlow, Lengel & Tomic, because there is visual anonymity, it doesn’t mean they are unidentifiable. Being or feeling anonymous can make people feel less inhibited and there are different ways of looking at this in CMC. There’s the more positive freedom from constraints and there’s the more negative freedom from responsibility.
When a person feels anonymous and they are familiar with computers, they are more likely to find CMC less inhibiting and more likely to treat the medium as a normal form of social interaction (Kerr and Hiltz, 1982). And as technology becomes easier to use and different technologies become accessible to more users of CMC will feel even less inhibited.
Studies have shown that shy people have been able to express themselves more on CMC because of the perceived anonymity. Most people think that disinhibitive behavior is directly related to rude or offensive behavior. Dictionary.com defines disinhibition as (1) loss of inhibition, as through the influence of external stimuli such as drugs or alcohol, or as a result of brain damage and (2) Unrestrained behavior resulting from a lessening or loss of inhibitions or a disregard of cultural constraints. Disinhibitive behavior is not limited to only rude or offensive interaction. Users of computer-mediated communication systems can express informational disinhibition, becoming more connected with people who share common interests but with whom they would otherwise be unacquainted (Rice and Love, 1987).
Diane Gordon was an assistant to an executive at a reputable PR agency in Hollywood. Diane is shy and conservative and she loves television. She would go home at night and watch television and the next day would send an e-mail to her friends giving a synopsis and review of the previous nights shows. Her reviews are never too critical or negative. Her friends would forward the e-mail to their friends and soon she had an e-mail list of over eight hundred Hollywood executives. Diane came to me about 4 years ago and asked me to create a blog for her. It’s called www.thesurfreport.biz. I created the logo and showed her how to use the blog. Diane has written reviews for Rolling Stone and has been quoted in the New York Times Television section.
Initially, Diane’s e-mails were almost anonymous as defined by Thurlow, Lengel & Tomic. Diane benefited from the freedom of constraints of the internet. Twenty years ago, Diane would have to be a television critic for a newspaper or newscast to ever reach an audience. Diane also realizes that she has a responsibility and she stays away from being negative and condescending.
Most users of CMC think of anonymous as some terrible wiki person who hacks government websites and leaks top secret information to the masses. But isn’t everyone anonymous when they sent an e-mail or when they post a message in a chat room?
Thurlow, C. & Lengel, L. & Tomic, A. (2004) Computer Mediated Communication: Social Interaction and the Internet. London: SAGE.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/disinhibition
Kerr, E. B. and Hiltz, S. R. (1982) "Computer Mediated Communication Systems: Status and Evaluation," Academic Press: New York
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anonymous
Rice, R. E. & Love, G. (1987). Communication Research, 14, 85-108.
http://thesurfreport.biz
