SIO4: Trollology 101

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 4, and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Okay, today I've got a great little discussion for you. Two gentlemen contacted me after the conversation with Eli and with Mike and Dustin because they were both happen to be doing research related to trolling and online behaviors and stuff like that, and I thought we'd all jump on and talk about their research, talk about what they found, their experiences, and see if it could shed some light on what's been going on and maybe the conversation with Mike and Dustin and maybe just online interactions as a whole. It was really fun, really insightful, and here you go.

0:01:22 Thomas: Joining me right now are Scott Dawson and David Spitzer. Scott and David, how are you doing?

0:01:27 Guests: Hey, Tom. Awesome. Great.

0:01:28 Thomas: You guys had actually reached out on the topic of kind of trolling and online interaction and that kind of stuff. And hence, we're here having a conversation. I'm excited to get to it. But first, though, let's just do a brief introduction, if you don't mind. Starting with Scott. Who are you? What are you doing here? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

0:01:47 Guests: Well, sure, well, that's an existential question, right? I'm still trying to figure all that out, but No, well, just, you know, how do you define yourself in a minute or two? It's probably appropriate to mention that I am a former Christian. I was actually a minister in the Lutheran church, what's called a lay minister, music minister, very active in church and missions and proselytizing, even traveled the world doing it, um, kind of late in life, um, deconverted, to use, um, Seth's, uh, you know, Seth's term, which I love, um, but anyway, now I, I work as a market researcher, uh, doing a lot of data analysis, and I'm also finishing up a master's degree in sociology, sociology, and that's partly and probably mostly why the topic interested me so much. I was able to hear Eli's attempt at, you bringing some deeper thinking to this idea of the personas we put forward in social media.

0:01:50 Thomas: Yeah. Hey, Sure. Yeah.

0:02:50 Guests: And that's a major part of what I'm working on in my thesis, or at least a part. My thesis deals with the intersection of technology and and sociality and, um, that sort of thing, which we can get into more later, but, uh, that's, that's who I am essentially.

0:03:02 Thomas: Yeah. Excellent. I think you did a pretty good job of defining yourself. Without getting too mired in philosophy. You're able to avoid, I think, therefore I am. You skip that part. So, David, how about you?

0:03:08 Guests: Okay, great. Right, right, right. Yeah. I, I uh. Was born into a Catholic family. I call them super Catholics, you know, and, uh they, they still are. And, uh I went to Catholic school all the way through, uh freshman and, uh, high school and I started developing some critical thinking skills and I don't feel like I ever really, now that I look back at truly believed any of it. So I'm a pretty outspoken atheist now in the, in the movement. So, um, I am the, uh, accepted black sheep of the family, so to speak. But, uh. The, the, my background is I work in healthcare right now. I, um. I help run I run a nonprofit that helps connect healthcare organizations all throughout Arizona. And then kind of my educational background is I'm originally a technologist. I used to do a lot of startup companies, and so I have a degree in computer science.

And then I went on and got a law degree, so I Have a Law Degree with an emphasis in health, law, and privacy. And then now I'm working on finishing up a Ph.D. in psychology with a specific slant toward gender diversity. I have a daughter who is gay and has been kind of abused online and different things.

0:03:41 Thomas: Oh,

0:04:33 Guests: That's why I started getting interested into trolling and Internet addiction and the psychology around that.

0:04:40 Thomas: Yeah, that's really cool. So it sounds like you both are coming at it from slightly different angles, but you both have an interest in online interaction and I guess maybe even what makes trolls trollish. Is that fair to say? It's kind of a common interest there. So, Scott, what drove you toward this topic? So, we just heard, you David's reason having a daughter who's gay and being bullied online. What about you? What was your maybe experience that led you toward researching this kind of thing? Oh,

0:05:00 Guests: Sure. Yeah, well, first of all, I'm a new listener to your podcast. I've sort of died in, or not died in the wool, but initiated into the movement through Skeptic's Guide and then eventually found GAM and heard about this, you know, Thomas and the Bible. And so that that that led me to, you know, your Facebook page where I just really kind of stumbled upon this row that had been already going on.

0:05:34 Thomas: Wow. The thing, the original thing with kind of Michael and Dustin and Eli, that thing? Oh, okay.

0:05:35 Guests: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And and I intentionally, you Know, just stayed away from it because I didn't know the history, what's going on and that sort of thing. But when I heard there's gonna be a podcast about it, that was actually my introduction to you to atheistically speaking.

0:05:45 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. And what's funny is now this is the show is serious inquiries only. Like, actually renamed, but that's okay. But it's, you know, it's where it's the tie-in. This will now all make sense to everybody.

0:05:55 Guests: Um. Right. Right. Yeah. Here's the here's here's the transition. Um, but so, you know, my thesis doesn't deal specifically with trolling and bullying, but obviously as a human in the 21st century, I've encountered it tangentially or even observed it, um, but with my thesis, it's about, uh, how technology is, is possibly causing a lack of interest in driving among young people, which gets into the whole how the younger generation expressed themselves using modern technology, how they view technology as a vehicle for independence and self-expression and that sort of thing, which, again, here's that crossover. And so I just kind of nonchalantly mentioned, not even realizing at the time that Haley was the producer of the show, you know, just really learning all of this all at once. And I said, you know, I've got some opinions on this, you know, if you want to. Yeah, that's it.

0:06:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:55 Thomas: That's awesome. Yeah, well, okay, where should we start? Well, maybe, maybe let's start if there's anything to, for, I guess, for either of you that your specialties in your, your education, your research tells you about maybe that experience. I don't know, maybe that would be a good common place to start. Scott, what were your thoughts on that that interaction? What piqued your interest about it? And does it have any, does your research have anything to say about it?"

0:07:19 Guests: Yeah, the my personal research is still, you know, being collected. But my interest here just as a sociology, you know, a grad student is the particularly the sociologist geologist uh Goffman who put forth uh this theory called the dramaturgical theory of social interaction, which basically in a nutshell just says we're all, you, curating a performance to the world. This is obviously pre-internet age when he came up with this theory, um, but the idea being that the persona we put forward is a performance, like an actor on a stage. There's a back, there's a backstage element, there's our prep, there's rehearsal, and then there's that, that we put forward and we let people see, and it's carefully curated. And I'm just curious, as a, as a human and as a sociologist, on how internet technology makes that curation, uh, simpler for some, but also, as we've seen, can

0:07:24 Thomas: Sure. So

0:08:15 Guests: Be a tool for, um, hiding, almost, you know. And, and as I has said in a couple, couple other podcasts, um, you know, that letting their true self show, um, under the guise of either a fake name or a fake profile, that sort of thing. No?

0:08:30 Thomas: That would be like kind of cutting through the performance a little bit. That would be, like, rather than this nice character that we all perform for each other, maybe the anonymity of online kind of cuts through that, do you think? Or would that in itself still be another character.

0:08:46 Guests: I think that's a great question, um, I certainly, I've read contradictory things on this, I mean, obviously, as science should be, there's people saying now this whole idea that, that we even are performing is just, it's bunk, um, but, you know, I, I don't know. I tend to agree with Eli's point on this, not to make this all about Eli, but he kind of sparked this flame that seems to still be going. I kind of agree with the idea that how you behave when you think nobody's watching is your true self. I think where we run into some nuance is the fact that the internet really isn't anonymous. It's a pseudo-anonymity. I, I think, um, I mean, you can go through steps to, to, uh, hide, but, you know, ultimately, and this is what we tell our kids, right. Is that everything you do online lives forever and, you know, it's going to, you know, can be traced back to, um.

0:08:52 Thomas: Sure.

0:09:42 Guests: So I wonder if that's also part of where there's a problem is it's not truly anonymous. Um, but people treat it as if it is and it gets ugly.

0:09:51 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. And I thought it was interesting how differently, you Dustin, and again, this was what, 298, I think, 297, 299, or is it 298? 299? One or the other. How much differently they acted in person, particularly Dustin. So that was kind of an interesting thing that he softened up in person. But online, it's a whole different different persona. Let's bring David into this. Was that what also sparked your interest? Was that interaction or did you, do you have a different thing that kind drew you to the, to this?

0:10:19 Guests: Yeah. Yeah, I listened to both parts of that. And the second part was brutal to listen through in one shot. Feel Eli and you kind of cracking over the airwaves as you were going through that. It was brutal. But, you know, it was interesting because I'm kind of fascinated with the intersection of psychology with the behaviors online. Line, and there is a certain amount of reduced friction, I call it, in creating social contacts online. And there's, there's very little stakes involved. So if I have a real life friend, you know, there's a lot of effort involved, I have to interact with that person, and when I interact with that person there's lots of stakes, uh, face to face with thatperson Online, I can create a friend instantaneously and there's very little steaks involved in that relationship, but there's So,

0:10:26 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:13 Thomas: So you're saying like the normal, when you talk about stakes, what do you mean? I mean, if you were to explain that a little more, like it sounds like you could just, you can make the friend quickly, but you can also, there's nothing keeping you attached to the friend as much. Is that what you mean?

0:11:18 Guests: Yeah, It's personal contact, that face-to-face contact that I think defines, interactions that are much more complicated than a simple text or a simple interaction online. Line, um, if I can use a semi, uh, horrifying analogy, um, I was a sniper with the Third Ranger Battalion, uh, for a while, and, uh, I had a friend who was a attack helicopter pilot, and, um, he used to talk about going on attack runs, and, you know, he would shoot a missile, or, you know, shoot a rocket or whatever, um, which was much different from being right up close to someone and that, that human interaction, that, that connection you have with their human being, sort of falls away the less personal it gets.

0:11:46 Thomas: Oh, wow. Yeah. There's a lot to think about there when it comes to off a drone or something and just pushing a button, and it kind of looks like a video game versus if you've got an actual human in your sights and you're actually squeezing the trigger. Yeah, that's interesting.

0:12:19 Guests: Exactly there Was a really horrifying kind of study that was done, the results were sort of interesting, you talked about the psychology of trolling online. It was a, by some researchers by Neotrapital and Buckles. And they did this survey among a couple thousand different people who were heavy internet users. And they tried to measure their sadist level. And they had these different measures and questionnaires they used. And they measured the level of Machiavellianism, Narcissism, it's a coffee, uh, direct sadism, and, and vicarious sadism. And then they found out what activities they like to do online more than others, and they broke them down into debating issues, chatting, trolling, and other. And the highest level of sadism, by far, were the people who enjoyed trolling, so there's, I I think, um, doing things that, uh, you, you watch other people suffer. So you're, you're injecting, like, a, like, passive-aggressive behavior. Direct sadism is when you, like, the light small animals on fire and see their pain directly.

0:13:18 Thomas: What was the other one? There's vicarious sadism. What is that? That. Can you explain that? Hmm. Oh, wow. Okay.

0:13:39 Guests: Stuff

0:13:39 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. So it, so the difference, the difference is being online or the difference you don't actually see it. You're just kind of trying to cause it, okay. It's a way It's of distinguishing like actually physically harming someone with that kind of harm, I guess. I was just curious about that. That term, I hadn't heard that term before. It's interesting, so the highest, uh, sadists were trolls is what the, the result ended up being, yeah.

0:13:39 Guests: Yeah You, you're an instigator, you like, you like to see other people, other people towards suffering. Yeah yeah It was, it was a remarkably, and, and direct, direct comparison when, when the, when you put all the stuff on a chart, you know, there was debating issues, a small amount, chatting, almost none. Uh, and when you got to the trolling activity, it was like off the charts.

0:14:26 Thomas: I, I don't get it. I, I really don't. I think that may be a fundamental, I've always thought that this trolling thing is just a fundamental personality difference, um, I mean, I'm sure there's going to be little ways here and there that you might step over a line or kind of act a little more, I don't know, insulting, if you're mad or something, but, but actually just trolling people, I've never understood it. And I've furthermore, I think the most troubling thing to me is maybe not even necessarily full on trolls themselves, but sort of troll apologists, you know, people who kind of just excuse it as, like, well, it's online. It's just, you kind of have to be ready for that. And it's, it's interesting to me that we can't just, like, there's almost an expectation that people are going to be horrible to you online. And there's an expectation that you, you should just get over it.

0:15:13 Thomas: Or, or that if it's a, say a famous person or any sort of notable person, or, or If It's Anita Sarkesian, you're just expected to, you Know, just deal with it because that's how people are online. And it's really really weird because I just don't see it that way at all. And I've never really had the desire to just cause somebody, you know, kind of psychological harm online. I don't get it. I mean, there's always going to be an element of if you're a celebrity, you will have to deal, I'm sure, you might have to do with people giving their opinions. You might have to deal with, like, oh, I hate that guy or hate that girl. She's kind of, she's a little bit, you have to dealing with that because you're in the public sphere and it's going to to be impossible to avoid, but the actual direct, like, oh, uh, you know, a thousand people today said go kill yourself, like, that, that kind of thing. I don't know why that should ever be normalized, and I feel like it is being normalized a little bit.

0:15:42 Guests: Sure.

0:16:09 Guests: I wonder though, when You, when mentioned the idea of, uh, you Know, celebrities have, have always been fair game, Right? Whether it's politics or actors. And I just wonder if the technology has allowed so many just sort of normal, average people, you know, to have a platform to to become a celebrity. I mean, we were in the age of the YouTube star, and, you, podcast stardom, um, as, as you, as you know, uh, but I mean, it sure sure, but, you know, it elevates what was once, you know, a spectator to the level, or at least the, the appearance of a celebrity, and maybe that, maybe that plays a role.

0:16:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:16:24 Thomas: Like everybody, yeah I don't know anything about that, yeah Well, I was going to say that it seems like that used to be something reserved for public people, and now it could be pretty much anyone, like, at any time, any person, if something goes viral, or some post they did, or whatever, if they're online, they could be a target of everybody's thoughts. And, uh, and I would make a distinction between just opinions and, like, which is already bad too, like, there's two, it seems, seems like there's a few different things. There's the idea that, um, was it John Ronson, that book he wrote, um, about, like, uh, being publicly shamed on Twitter, social media, you know, about, there was, like, the girl who was in the plane who tweeted that joke, and then all, as the, in between the flight, when she took off and when she landed, she had no connection, and then internet connection, and she landed, and all of a sudden, and the world had gone nuts with her tweet. And I think she lost her job and all this stuff. There's a certain element of everyone's opinions.

0:16:59 Guests: Yeah

0:17:46 Thomas: You could know everyone's opinion about you instantly now, which is a difficult thing to deal with. That's not an easy thing. Certainly not easy for me.

0:17:56 Thomas: That's easy. Some people have a good, strong self-esteem. All the people's thoughts just kind of roll off of them. But not everybody is like that. And then there's another level, which is, like I said, people just saying horrible purposefully trollish awful things to you, which I think, I think tends to happen to women a little bit more, uh, any feminist, like there's a just a troll army taking them on. And I, it can kind of happen to anybody now, like you said, that's a good point, like it's no longer just uh whoever's on TV or in a movie or something. It's anybody who expresses an opinion or is online in any way can be subject to it. So that's interesting.

0:18:32 Guests: I think the internet definitely is, is a unique uh and obviously a new frontier where you, somebody like, you know, like me, and this isn't the case, but somebody like me could, you know, with a little amount of work, could have an audience, you, of a couple thousand people for me to say whatever, you, inane thing is on my mind. And, you, all of a sudden you're, you're just, you, you're just exposing your thoughts and in your opinions to a far greater number of people than you would in real life. Find it interesting whenever I, you meet a troll online, I always ask them the same question, which is, you, would you say the same thing to a person face-to-face?

0:19:10 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:10 Guests: And it's interesting. They almost always say, yeah, I would. And I almost always don't believe it. There's a few I believe, but most of the time I think they're full of shit.

0:19:18 Thomas: Yeah, because people just don't say that. I mean, if that were true, you would hear this stuff all the time. But yeah, that's really interesting.

0:19:30 Thomas: Let's talk about that, David. Have you encountered, do you guys look for this kind of thing? Have you encounter trolls where you've tried to ask them, them like, hey, what are you doing? Because this is kind of the first time that I've really confronted anyone. And I didn't, you know, it was more Eli, I guess I would have to say, although I did tell these people like I wanted to talk to them, Michael and Dustin, but I haven't done this a whole lot. That makes sense. I believed that they would think that they could say that to anyone. But I also agree with you that I highly doubt their own own opinion of themselves in that instance. Like that doesn't sound right. Nobody does that.

0:20:04 Guests: Some people that you get the sense that they have a problem and they might interact like that. Yeah, with no filter. But I mean, you know, I spent a good chunk of time, I used to debate people online quite a bit around religion. From the standpoint of critical thinking, I would try to engage people and set ground rules. And it usually took, it went to three different levels. One is, you know you needs to save you. I'm like, well, let's talk about that. And, and then it always, it went down to the level of go fuck yourself at the end.

0:20:08 Thomas: Yeah. Truly no filter eventually hits that. Yeah,

0:20:40 Guests: It's the go fuck herself or, you know, burn in hell. And I, and I, and I would try to ask, well why, why do you feel like that? I mean, what, and I'd ask them the question and I think it's that visceral reactions, like it's that that cognitive dissonance that people have when they're asked to use their brain and what they want to believe in their brain are telling them two different things. Yeah.

0:21:02 Thomas: Well that would imply that people are always wrong and they kind of like when they have that reaction. I'm not sure that's always true, but go, go ahead. Uh, Scott, I'm sorry.

0:21:03 Guests: Right. No. No. I, I Don't I don't Think that I was just, I would just, you, fear, I think, is that the the troll is kind of bleeding over into the real world now. And there's been some studies that question whether the way we interact online is it shaping the way we interact in the real world. And I've seen some instances where I'm thinking maybe it has.

0:21:28 Thomas: Yeah yeah, that would be an interesting thing to study. I hope that doesn t happen because it sounds horrible.

0:21:34 Guests: I think it's going to be the difficulty there is determining causal direction. You know, I mean, we've been killing each other and doing horrible things for a very long time. You know we just figured out that, you know, rocks are more effective than sticks and then bullets are more affective than rocks and, you you know? Um, so I, I don't, I don't know that, that it's making society worse. In fact, I think, and then again, to bring my thesis into it, I, uh, I am, I'm intentionally looking for the ways that it is making life better.

0:21:57 Thomas: Yeah, sure. Oh. Really?

0:22:13 Guests: And I, Yeah. And, and I think that that's, I mean, you run across the horrible stuff and I believe me, I'm not saying David's doing the opposite at all. I'm not, this is not a confrontation. I am just saying that just happens to be, I know myself. If I focused on all the ways the internet has made the world worse, I would sink into a hole of despair. I think many of us would. But run across the trolls. Here's an example.

I was doing some volunteer work for a state representative candidate in this last election. She was running, I'm in Kansas, by the way, she was running for house representative, representative, anyway, um, I was doing some volunteer work for her, which includes some social media stuff and some video production, and I was looking at her Facebook page and noticed, you know, some new people, one that were talking to each other, they were saying very similar things, very disjointed interpretations of something the candidate had posted, and it just looks suspicious to me, and I'm not an internet or computer guru, so I just go look at the profiles files of each of these people who are having this back and forth, like, obviously trying to incite something bigger, very trollish, and the only friends on Facebook were each other, plus plus one other guy, and I kind of deduced that that

0:22:13 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

0:23:34 Guests: Guy was actually running both, you know, it was just a very clear, very clear-cut example of somebody who not only just fell into a discussion online and fell victim to this anonymity, but went out of his way to create fake profiles, create a discussion, try to stir things up, and that was my first honest, like, holy crap, this, you know, there's really people out there that that seek to, you know,

0:23:37 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:03 Thomas: They, these people have so much time on their hands, that's the number one thing, so much time on their hands, and then they get something out of this, I don't get it, but that's, yeah, I guess that's the question, like, why is it, do they just have no other outlet or something to be able to, I don't, I don't know, but, but look, but I wouldn't mind actually, Scott, you started to talk about your research, I think it's really fascinating to talk about. So have you, has it been measured that there's a decrease in interest in driving among millennials? Because I actually believe it and that's so cool. Take us through how you became interested in this maybe.

0:24:05 Guests: Exactly. Right. Sure.

0:24:25 Guests: There Is, yeah. Sure. Well, well, the short story is I have four teenagers, actually, um, two, two adults, uh, 20. And, uh. My daughter is about to turn 20, and then I have an 18 year old, a 16 year old and a 14 year old. And the 19 year old and the 16 year olds have absolutely no interest in driving whatsoever. Um, yeah. And I mean, I was, I know.

0:24:59 Thomas: And it's so weird to imagine because for, you know, I'm only 30, but even me, it was like the goal was to, you Know, just that was the goal, like to be able to to drive yourself, just as an incredible thing to look forward to. That was what everybody wanted to do, is a countdown to when you got your license or whatever, your permit, and then when you maybe have a car. But now that's really fascinating. So is this something that has been measured beyond just obviously this anecdotal experience?

0:25:13 Guests: Yeah.

0:25:28 Guests: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. What hasn't been measured is why, but it has been measured in both in, you know, popular polls such as Gallup and that sort of thing. But also, you Know, it's an academic, you Now, fact is to put it in no uncertain terms that the younger you are, the less interested you are in driving. And in fact, you you said you're 30. You're kind of in that traditional because you're kind of mid to late millennial, whatever that means. It's just for, you know, categorization is just it's convenient, useful. But 30 to 35 years old, you're you're your you're old enough where the Internet was not ubiquitous.

0:26:11 Thomas: Right.

0:26:11 Guests: Yeah. So and certainly cell phone technology was still sort of, you know, reserve for the rich and famous. Um, so a car, uh, you know, certainly represented, uh, more than just a means to get from point A to point B. You know, it was, you had, maybe you had your, the kind of car that you thought represented you. And I mean, we've seen it, we've seeing the muscle car, we've sehen the Volkswagen Beetle or, or, you know, Volkswagon bus. You know, there's a certain type that seems to go along with that. What I'm finding as I've done interviews and then also, of course, done literature review is causes of that may be a little skewed. In other words, I came at it with the idea that it was a little more black and white. Cars represented mobility. As technology increased, we have other ways of being mobile.

0:26:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:27:02 Guests: Electronically, I mean, we call them mobile phones. I mean, this whole idea of of needing not not needing to be in proximity to someone in order to connect with them. And then, of course, you throw into the mix, you know, app based ride sharing, you Know, like Uber and that sort of thing. You know, you don't need a car. You know you you you have a group of friends, five or six. If one of them has a car, everybody kind of sees that as, hey, we're good. We can get somewhere together. But what I'm finding is there may be some confounding variables involved, such as affordability, for clunkers. You may remember a few years ago it was a big thing. You could get top dollar for your piece of junk. Well, what it did is it drains affordable used cars for a segment of our society, teenagers, who don't have thousands of dollars necessarily to throw down on a car.

0:27:04 Thomas: Yeah, it's

0:27:54 Guests: So a car has become sort of out of reach. So again, not drawing conclusions yet, but what I'm finding is that technology is very likely not replacing cars anytime soon. But it is very definitely delaying. A car may be something that's right up there with a house for some of this demographic. It's just something you get later.

0:28:19 Thomas: So weird to fathom. Yeah, that That attitude. But I wonder, yeah, just, just, just wildly speculating, but it does, I, I wonder if back before all this phone technology, social media stuff, like that, it was really a different time where if you weren't at your friend's house or something like that, you didn't know what your friend was doing. You know, like there was no, you, short of the weird, like, 80s movie slash Stranger Things ham radio setup or something, you just, you just didn't know what your friend was doing. Like if you didn't call him, if you weren't immediately on the phone, you had no idea. You'd go, you know, weekends, weeks, whatever it is, depending on summer break, summer break.

Your friends would just disappear. Like people you knew at school, No idea what they did for summer break, anyway, for me. And then you come back and be like, oh, hey, I kind of remember this person a little bit. Now it must be so different. And I wonder if that could be part of why you just don't need a car to be able to go visit your friends or do be social or do whatever. You can just kind of, you're all together all the time online. And it sounds like that was sort of what you were looking into, but we'll have to see, I guess, we'll await, you know, what your conclusions end

0:28:20 Guests: Yeah, exactly. Sure. Sure.

0:29:29 Thomas: Up being years and years down the road.

0:29:32 Guests: Well, hopefully not. Hopefully next spring.

0:29:33 Thomas: Yeah. One of those 10 year processes of, yeah, sure.

0:29:36 Guests: Right, right. No, one other point I wanted to make, you talked about being together all the time. Again, this is anecdotal, but I'd be curious to hear responses to this after it airs. But, my kids, it's not unusual at all for them to be on Skype, you know, with a friend, doing homework, listening to music, not even necessarily communicating, but still being in each other's space, And you so I think that gets to what you're saying is, you know, that doesn't require physical proximity.

0:30:06 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:30:07 Guests: But to tie it back into our topic, you know, I loved what David said about, you you know, there's less friction. Technology takes away some of that friction. Well, you when you were growing up, when I was growing up certainly, you know, your friends were in your neighborhood. I mean, your interaction was face-to-face and as David pointed out or at least alluded to, you know, there was consequences for what you said and did. I mean, you know, you had to own what you said, sometimes it meant an argument or maybe fight, you You know, I mean, there was, so you, you definitely filtered it. Even if you thought something, you didn't necessarily always say it.

0:30:43 Thomas: Yeah it's curious because one of the things I've said, I think through maybe after that episode and kind of in the episode 300, one of them on this topic was I do wonder if it's, if it is reversing itself because the anonymity, I think, I feel like things are getting less anonymous. Have you, and maybe we can bring David back into this. I do feel like things Are getting a little less anonymous online. What with everything being related to your Facebook or your Twitter account or what you log into everything with Google or fit, one of those. And it used to be just totally easy to be anonymous. You just type into a stupid thing and it's on a forum. And what if your picture and your name weren't your picture and your game, then no one had any chance of knowing who you are. But now I feel like it's not that way as much.

0:31:29 Thomas: And I wonder if eventually it will kind of correct, like course correct, If eventually we will treat online interactions more like we're in person, especially when Scott talks about like being on Skype, kind of just hanging out on Skype. You know, like treating that more as a substitute for an actual physical interaction. It could be. That's one thing that I had in the back of my mind through all this. But let's bring David in. Maybe, David, you could talk about more your angle on this.

0:31:58 Guests: Yeah. I mean you ever, you ever seen that movie Jay and silent Bob?

0:32:01 Thomas: Oh, I haven't. Sorry. Sorry.

0:32:03 Guests: Well, there's a, there's this one part where they, they find the internet for the first time and people are commenting on their, their movie and how much it sucks. And so they get a couple million dollars and they go around the country to beat the shit it out of all the people who made the shitty comments and so, so you know, it's kind of a funny spin on that. I mean, even though the internet is getting less anonymous in some ways, there's still that geographic, you know, buffer that you have between the other person. And so you, you know, I see more and more people being trolls as themselves, which is horrifying also. And, you know, And I see more of that spillover into real life because I work a lot with behavioral health and mental health and a lot of clinics here in Arizona. And we have this intersection of trolling and the way people interact online and suicide sort being correlated. You going through something very traumatic, you from a mental health perspective, and someone jumps in as a troll in that discussion, that can have a terrible effect on

0:32:31 Thomas: Yeah, that's true.

0:33:13 Thomas: Yeah.

0:33:14 Guests: That person. I mean, right now there's about 30,000 suicides in the U.S., and there's no direct correlation to what percentage of those are precipitated by something that happens online. But it is a growing correlation and a

0:33:27 Thomas: That 30,000 suicides? What is that? Is That that a year? It seems too low for you. Oh, okay. Every

0:33:30 Guests: Year a year there's So, 30,000 deaths in the U.S., there's about a million deaths worldwide from suicide. And so, we just, to clarify, I'm a big proponent of technology. And I think social media and other outlets have been wonderful ways to communicate and to interact with our people. And part of me wonders if, you know, when you have hundreds of thousands of people have access to a particular thread, you, what percentage of those people have some sort of latent mental health issue that's being manifested in the way they interact, or they're cathartically taking it out on someone else. In terms of the sheer volume of people. So it may seem like there's a lot of trolls, but when you have, you know, 1.8 billion monthly users on Facebook, there's got to be some weird apples in that bunch, so to speak.

0:34:26 Thomas: Yeah, they do definitely make their presence known, like they do. They stick out a little bit. That's true. So, did David, did you have, um, research that you wanted to talk about? Are you in the midst of, uh,

0:34:37 Guests: Yeah. So, one of the things, now there's this thing called Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5, which is basically the catalog of all the mental disorders officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, association and one of the ones that have been kind of hotly debated and not made it in the manual yet is internet addiction, and Internet, internet addiction is very closely related in terms of the, the clinical aspects of it, to like gambling addiction, you know, very low sort of self-esteem issues, um, very impulsive type of behaviors. And so, trolling online has a very, very tight correlation to internet addiction.

So, if I'm using the internet too much, and it's affecting my social life, my interaction, when I speak of person-to-person interaction, and my family life and my job, the incident of people exhibiting trolling behaviors is very high. So, the research I'm doing is looking into how to diagnose, uh, internet addiction, and how to correlate that to the trolling behavior, because I think there's a whole continuum of mental disorders that need to be linked together to really get down to the nitty-gritty of what drives people to jump into a conversation and say the most horrible thing you could possibly think of.

0:35:02 Thomas: Huh.

0:36:04 Thomas: Yeah, well, a couple questions for you, that's interesting. So, when you look at this internet addiction, um, I'm wondering, like, is, does it matter what you're doing, like, what, what is, because I wonder how you define it, is it a specific thing? I mean, I think right away, just, just because it's, it's funny, I jumped to like porn addiction, like online porn addiction, just because that's what I have. No, I'm just kidding. But I wonder like, does it, because I'm essentially online all day. I mean, I kind of feel like growingly, increasingly, we kind of all are, but I don't, is there something about what people are doing online that would more qualify it for an actual addiction? Do you have anything to say on that?

0:36:26 Guests: Sure.

0:36:47 Guests: You know, it, it's, it's really squishy, but I think the, the prevailing way to describe, bribe, any kind of addiction is if If it becomes a problem with your everyday life.

0:36:56 Thomas: Interfering with your life. Yeah.

0:37:00 Guests: So, you know, for you, your job is now on the internet. So if you spend 12 hours a day on the Internet, that's because you need to, to accomplish what you're trying to do. But if you're the Yeah.

0:37:15 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Hold on. Let me Skype in my wife so I can have a marriage still. I'll get here. Maybe if I start, that's when you know, like, that'S when you guys will have to sit me down. Like, I think you have a problem. When I start interviewing my wife in order to just get to have interaction with her.

0:37:32 Guests: And it's Just like anything else. Like if you're looking at drug like addiction or, you know, gambling, you if someone smokes weed or take some opiates every now and then, they're not an addict, they're just doing whatever. But if it becomes a to a point where it interferes with their life and their health, and that's where you have a demarcation point. This is kind of gray, but if you're on the internet, and you know, you know those people spend, you five, six, seven hours a day just going from, uh, Facebook to Twitter to other sites just to jump in and say their shit, then that's interfering with their lives to the point where if it can be classified as an internet addiction. Yeah.

0:38:10 Thomas: Well, would you, I would be curious, though, if it would go the other way. I mean, do they do that because they don't have social interaction in their lives? You know, if their lives are kind of devoid of any of that, then they just direct it into this medium where they can get whatever they need anytime.

0:38:27 Guests: And that's - that's you've absolutely nailed it. That's the same reason why people take, get, uh, an opiate addiction, or they're addicted to heroin. The drug is really ancillary to that process. The real problem is that there's something missing in their life and they're trying to fill it with heroin or the internet or gambling or whatever it is.

0:38:46 Thomas: Yeah. So you have found, or somebody has, studies have shown or something that there's a correlation between, a high correlation between trolling and internet addiction. Yeah, Yeah. Well,

0:38:56 Guests: Yeah, absolutely. Wonder how many trolls, though, are you somebody, you know, trying out, you know, a persona. Not necessarily and I'm not talking about someone who creates a fake profile, but I just mean you me, back up a little bit. I am an adult with Asperger's. I was diagnosed seven years ago.

And I think this is why the dramaturgical theory of social interaction appealed to me so much, because I was involved in theater and I was involved in performing, I'm a musician, and all this stuff, and it gave me tools that I found difficult to come by, uh, on my own. So, you know, in drama they teach you how to be seen and be heard and how to wait for somebody else to finish speaking and how to emote and how to express and you know, what looks like what.

And it tends to be exaggerated, at least in in stage play, but this idea of the internet being a way to sort of plan your thoughts, plan your responses, um, tweak a witty barb or a comment, uh, I wonder if not all trolls are necessarily intending to be trolls. And we see this in that episode, uh, where the guys, you you know, walk back their comments when confronted with it, um, regardless of how successful that conversation went with Eli, you know? I can't help but think that, you know, when faced with their trolldom, uh, you know, they found it somewhat repulsive, you know, and that maybe it was an unintended consequence, however poorly executed.

0:40:31 Guests: So I, I, yeah, I don't want to step on, on you you, Thomas, but I'm just curious, David, if you if you've run across any nuance in there, that maybe it's a matter of defining what a troll is and what a troll does, and if there's an intent aspect that needs to be defined. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, there there is a whole, you know, range of of activities that you could lump into the word "troll," uh, from mild to obviously very extreme. And the thing is that because of the way people interact online, I'm a big proponent of the word empathy, and it's very easy for people in that sort of medium to forget that there's other human beings on the other side, and that they have feelings, and they want to be treated in a certain way, and they expect to have an interaction that's normal and not abusive.

0:41:24 Guests: And so it becomes very easy, especially if you spend an inordinate amount of time online, to think that, oh, I can throw this out there because there's no consequences for me. And some of them may be acting out a persona or some trying out different ways to become sort of famous. If you have a hole in your life and you feel like no one is paying attention to you, a sure way to get attention is to jump into someone's conversation and crap all over it.

0:41:54 Thomas: I feel like this is, you know, I'm not - I'm not doing research on this, so this is based on only my feelings, but I do feel like a lot of it comes from feeling, uh, I dunno, disempowered, or feeling like - like someone, like you just said, someone should be paying attention to you. It's a way of getting attention. It's the way of grabbing on to whatever power you can by forcing it on other people and forcing a reaction out of them sometimes. But yeah, okay, interesting. Was there more to say, David, on your research, or

0:42:23 Guests: Yeah, Just the one final note. And, you know, there there's also some to you know, in the past 20 years, there's been an inordinate amount of shootings at schools, more so than have ever happened before. And, you one of the questions that rises immediately is, why would you do that? What is what is happening with that person that would make make them do that? And, you know, there was if someone is bullied or has, you know, feels like they're disempowered, um, 30, 40 years ago that would manifest as, uh, suicide or some other type of destructive behavior. And what, uh, some psychologists are looking at now is that there's been so many of these school shootings, that so many people have done this, is they have have looked at this and said, "This is my way of becoming famous."

0:43:12 Guests: This is my way of being remembered. And so I'm going to do this horrific act as a way to immortalize myself in the history books. And that sort of thinking, you know, I think plays in a small part into trolling. It's like, I feel disempowered, I feel disjointed from my community, and so how do I make myself part of that, or how do I elevate myself so that people pay attention to me?

0:43:37 Thomas: Yeah. So let's see where to go from here. I mean, we're about it at time, but I want to make sure, any closing thoughts, I guess, Scott, what do you think?

0:43:45 Guests: I think it's been a good conversation, for sure, um. I think I think what the conversation probably could, you know, if we had another hour or two, is maybe get into, you know, levels of, you know, no doubt I have commented and and posted things that were probably trolly, thinking I was being witty, thinking I was being thought provoking and you know, I can think of a couple instances where I was actually called out on it, and you I'm just wondering about that, is important. And I just want to make sure we don't forget to also empathize with the troll.

Troll makes them an other, just as any other pejorative does, does um, and I'm not saying there there are those who don't deserve it. I'm just saying I wonder if we need to just be sure and be clear of what kind of activity that we're talking about when it comes to trolling. Um, I know that wasn't the intent of this particular episode, but, um, it's just it's just an area of curiosity for me. Driving is just a way of drilling down on a bigger question, which is, how is technology changing the way we socialize?

0:44:54 Thomas: Okay.

0:44:54 Guests: And, and so I mean, again, trolling ends up being a major part of that because of how we interact with each other. But yeah, as far as my specific thesis, answering that question, I don't know that it will, other than to say, technology is changing the way we socialize, you know. Everything David has brought up is, you know, as horrifying as some of it is, it is real, and it's it needs to be addressed.

Um, I just, you know, I'm always try, at least trying to be conscientious of the fact that, um, there's always two sides to it, to a story on this And, and it was really it was really, uh, interesting, and, um, I don't know, just eye-opening to listen to those guys walk back their positions when, you know and I just wonder, and I think Eli even, you know, conceded to this in his last interview with you, you know, there's things he should have and could have done differently, you know, relating his own experience as a bully of words. And, you his, his way out and I just wonder, if we talked more about that, that those who are classified as trolls might be given a graceful way to to walk back. Yeah.

0:45:25 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:46:02 Thomas: Yeah, okay, well, in response to that, I would say that while they did, I would say Dustin walked quite a bit back, Mike, I'm not so sure, but their online behavior didn't really change after that. Like, they, I mean, For the most part, they've been, you know, Dustin was arguing me about, I think he still listens, so they might both still listen, for all I know, but Dustin was unhappy with me saying that people had called him, which they did, uh, several people messaged me and say, "Hey, he's more of a troll than he let on." And he proceeded to inundate me with a lot of posts about it, and I kind of went Back and forth with him, and, and uh, I, I think that I, I don't think that his behavior has changed all that much in my judgment, and I certainly don't think Mike's has, uh, and I, I don't know, I mean, I, I, I think that I like what you're saying, I like your approach of we do need, you know, it would be good to treat everyone with empathy, of course, and figure out what's going on.

But if the theory was that maybe when you talk to these people, as we did, maybe their behavior will change, it doesn't seem like it has. I don't know. That would be an open question that I would like to know the answer to is how do we reduce this behavior? And if it's, you know, is it possible? But yeah, who knows? Knows. Those are just two people, I guess. And, and, you, we're all just

0:46:13 Guests: Yeah. Oh. Okay. Wow.

0:46:39 Guests: Small.

0:47:26 Guests: Base

0:47:26 Thomas: A few, a handful of people. Yeah. So, but, but David, what about you? What about closing thoughts from you?

0:47:26 Guests: Size. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, my interest lies in really trying to understand the intersection of really established mental diseases and how they may correlate to behavior online. You know, a lot of interaction online is contextless. And so some behavior which may feel like trolling may be just because they're just words on a screen. You, the sarcasm doesn't play well Sometimes in written words. And so what I'm really interested in is the true troll that goes in there and just goes from zero to 11 for no apparent reason. And where, and, you know, Scott was right. I mean, in in the research I'm doing, that person, that true troll is a victim also. I mean, it's hard to be empathetic, I understand, to that person because they're being horrible to you. But it's much like someone who has schizophrenia or Tourette's, you know, if a Tourette's person comes up and starts yelling, fuck in your face, they're doing that because they have a problem. You're talking to Tom and Cecil at that point.

0:47:56 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah,

0:48:35 Guests: Yeah, you're talking about Eli or something or one of those guys. Yeah. But I mean really understanding. And the bottom line is that that behavior should not be tolerated, but it has to be how do we fix it? How do we, you help the victims on both sides, understanding that, you know, a certain percentage of those trolls are just, I mean, for lack of better words, they're just assholes and that's what they do. And some of them are actually suffering from other issues that went, if they were addressed, would help alleviate some of the stuff they do

0:48:35 Thomas: Interesting.

0:49:07 Thomas: I have a couple of thoughts, apologies, because I was, you know, getting in the last word here, but but yeah, I think that that is, of course, on some level, we're, it's all deterministic system here. I don't know. I'm not a huge believer in any sort of libertarian free will. In some way, we all are kind of a victim of whatever circumstances and genetics we have, of course. And then you can talk about varying levels of how that feels. It feels like someone with Tourette's is absolutely not in control. And whereas somebody with maybe just some sort of personality issues is maybe a little more in control. So there's different levels of how that feel. I would say that the important thing that it comes to my mind when you mention that, which is an interesting thought to treat trolls sort of like people with Tourette's or something like that, to think of it that way.

0:49:56 Thomas: My thought would be, let's not normalize it then, because there are the people, like I said, maybe not trolls, but troll lights or troll-ish People or troll apologists who do kind of normalize it and make it okay and say, well, it's just, that's the internet. That's how it's going to be. I but then the other thought occurred to me that if we did just treat it as though anyone who does that is some like someone who has an involuntary kind of disorder like like Tourette's or something like that that might take some of the power out of it and maybe therefore take some of the appeal out of it for all for all I know, you know, like if it was treated that way of like, oh, that's just, you know, somebody just involuntarily

0:50:04 Guests: Well, above all, Above all a troll, like a bully needs an audience, and without an audience, it's no fun. Fun, that's right. I mean, I've been involved in groups where the mantra is ignore the troll and they'll go away, and every single time it's true, that's

0:50:36 Thomas: Yeah.

0:50:50 Thomas: The only my only resistance to that is that the person who, when it's targeted, like Anita Sarkeesian, to use her again as an example, because she was just the subject of, yeah, like she can't just ignore it. Like, sure, in certain settings, I think it makes sense. You know, you're in a group forum, maybe like you're talking about, and if nobody takes the bait, that person doesn't know anything about individuals, maybe. Maybe like that troll is kind of just come in and, and trying to start shit for no reason when it's a targeted like army of people attacking one person online.

0:51:04 Guests: Different Yeah Right Sure

0:51:31 Thomas: I, I, do, I just don't like the idea of saying, ah, just forget about it. You know, ultimately, sadly, it kind of is what Anita Sarkeesian has to do because you just can't, you're not going to stop it. But I don't, I personally, my personal feeling is I don't ever want that to be what we, the the only thing we say. Like I would, I would like to keep that behavior of online harassment, to keep a stigma attached to that, to not make light of it. And sure, maybe she can ignore it all day. She'll still get it. You know, like she's still going to, she could ignore it all day, she could not show any response to it of any kind, and she would still get It. It wouldn't solve anything.

0:51:31 Guests: Sure Yeah Yeah Right

0:52:13 Thomas: So I think it might be a little bit different when it comes to that targeted individual harassment.

0:52:18 Guests: I Agree, and I wonder if it becomes something else entirely. It's like a mob. Yeah.

0:52:22 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you guys so much for reaching out and for coming on. I found this really interesting. Lots of things to think about. I think there's a lot of open questions in this, but it is a new thing. Like you said, I mean, I think that's probably why you both are doing research involved in it. Very new thing to think About, but lots of interesting questions. So thank you, David. And thank you Scott so much For coming on.

0:52:23 Guests: Exactly Thanks Thomas, thank you.

0:53:10 Thomas: All right, fascinating stuff. Thanks so much again to Scott and David. And now I've got to thank my new patrons over at patreon.com slash seriouspod. I'm really excited that people are apparently finding the new address, the new URL. And once again, if anyone is having trouble accessing their RSS feed because it did change, the bonus RSS fee did change from Atheist to SeriousPod, if absolutely anyone is having any problems, contact me. I will get it fixed for you. That's sort of the second to last thing in the transition along with Facebook, who is just never going to answer my inquiries about changing my page name. Apparently, their methodology is just to never answer anything and never address anything, and then it doesn't matter to them. Maybe I just have to create a new page and lose my 6,500 likes.

0:53:59 Thomas: That'll be great. Anyway, on a more positive note, Thank you to Satan's Swampy Asshole.

0:54:06 Thomas: All right. If you pledge, I guess I got to read the name. Thank you for that pledge. Brian Masters, End Well, Matt Carl, Andy Ward, John Brady, Reverend Bill, Anthoni Fortier, Phil Wotton, M R, Rachael Gunderson, Skeptic Runs, The NETSEC Heathan, Russell's Lonely Little Teapot. That's a cute little name. And Brandon. And thank you guys so much for being my new patrons for this week. Really, your support is greatly appreciated, especially at a time like this, entering into my first week of, you know, retirement. It's certainly, certainly nice. Speaking of nice, I've got to thank my all time greats.

They are Matt Garrett, Dale, Brian Garefort, Peter Skelton, Steve Sigmund, Blackhawks, Aerosign Sharks, Adrian Borschoff, Robert Shepis, Roger Metcalf, Adam Hicks, Matthew Maxson, Andrew Waddington, David at Zabby, I Ian Rosano, Jonathan Moyet, Kaylee Reiser, Jesse, Sakashite Fukasumi, Michael, Sammy, Thank you. Thank you for making the show exist. It really would not exist without all my lovely patrons, especially my top patrons. And I think that's all I have for you this week. I made a little Patreon announcement about future guests. I'm very, very excited about them. So that's another little bonus. I like making videos for you, something I think I'll have a little more time for now. And that's how I can think of. So thanks for another great week and I will see you guys next week.