Clinicians and researchers have observed how people may behave online in
ways that appear quite uninhibited as compared with their usual offline
behavior (Suler, 2003). So pervasive is the phenomenon that a term has
surfaced for it: “the online disinhibition effect.” Sometimes people reveal
suppressed emotions, fears, and wishes; they show unusual acts of kindness and
generosity, or go out of their way to help others. We may call this “benign disinhibition.”
On the other hand, people may be rude, critical, angry, hateful, and
threatening, or they visit places of perversion, crime, and violence – territory
they would never explore in the “real” world. We may call this “toxic disinhibition.”
As in all conceptual dichotomies, the distinction between benign and toxic
disinhibition can be complex or ambiguous. Nevertheless, for the sake of
simplicity, we may define benign disinhibition as a process of working through
– an attempt to better understand and develop oneself, to resolve interpersonal
and intrapsychic problems or explore new dimensions to one’s identity. By
contrast, toxic disinhibition is simply a blind catharsis, a fruitless repetition
compulsion or acting out of pathological needs without any beneficial
psychology change.
Whether online disinhibition is benign, toxic, or a compromise formation of
the two, several factors account for this loosening of the repressive barriers
against underlying fantasies, needs, and affect. For some people, one or two of
these factors produces the effect, but in most cases these factors interact,
resulting in a more complex and amplified form of disinhibition