Why are People so Mean Online?

Read through just about any comment section online, and you'll see vicious and hateful language. People attacking the original poster or each other, saying things they would never dare say in real life. Why?

Because online, people don't see other people as human. There's a detachment and disconnect because we can't see the other person’s face and their emotional reactions. They are only a static avatar.

This phenomenon also adds to the political divide in America. Each side separates into their bubble and echo chambers, getting news from only the sources they already agree with. They only talk with people whom they agree with, and they associate the other side as strawmen, thinking that all liberals are crazy communists who want to take their money, or all conservatives are racist bigots who don't care about the poor. Rather than talking to a physical person and discovering their actual views and perspectives, they create monsters in their heads based on the extremists they see on their biased news feed.

The media on each side only highlights the extremists on the other side because fear and disgust boosts their ratings. Being constantly bombarded by the extreme views of the opposition creates an echo-chamber that in turn makes their own views more and more extreme to counteract the extremists on the other side. This warped view of the opposition fuels the fire so liberals are more and more repulsed by conservatives and vice versa. If they each stepped outside their bubbles and interacted with an average person from the other side, they’d realize they are less extreme and more reasonable than they thought. They’d be kinder toward one another and be able to compromise.

Then maybe, in turn, online comments will become nicer as well. People are mean to others because of their inability to understand people who think differently than themselves. The internet needs less antagonism and more understanding.