The Disinhibition Effect

[A Desert Rose]

We all say and do things in cyberspace that we wouldn't normally say or do in the real world. We loosen up and feel less inhibited. Researchers have come to call this the "disinhibition effect."

It manifests itself in many ways, by our very own actions. Sometimes we share very personal things about ourselves. We reveal our secrets, fears, desires. Or we show unusual acts of kindness and generosity.

At other times, the disinhibition effect may not be so kind. We have all experienced rude and harsh criticisms, anger, hatred, even threats from others in cyberspace.

Some of us explore the dark underworld of the internet, places of the extreme, places some might never visit in the real world.

We find a kinship with like-minded or at least, similar-minded people here, and in this forum in particular, that is true. We develop friendships. And unfortunately, sometimes, enmity. We draw assumptions about people and see them as one-dimensional. We tend to base our opinions on a post here or there by someone, instead of understanding (as we would in the real world) that maybe that individual has just had to clean cat puke off the couch and was subsequently late for work and simply having a bad day.

But there is also a positive side to this disinhibition. It can indicate an attempt to understand and explore ourselves, to work through problems and find new ways of being. This is especially true in this forum. And for the most part, those who post here want to help and support each other.

I know that I have told things here that I was unable to ever discuss with my former husband. I know I am not alone in doing so.

Anyone have opinions to add?

 

[bunny bondage]

for me, talking with others in cyberspace gave me the courage and eagerness to try a lot of things in real life! and c'mon, something that connects millions of people and allows us to meet mind to mind can't be a bad idea.

 

[Desdemona]

I have definitely opened up quite a bit online. However, my increased comfort level with various topics has transferred into real life. Its been a good thing for me.

 

[Little Girl]

I have always had a problem expressing anything to my family and friends that I felt might make them uncomfortable or offend them. By being able to express myself on the internet and get feedback from others it has helped me to be more open with everyone in my life which in turn has made my relationships with my parents, friends, children and co-workers more enjoyable. I don't feel the need to pull my punches like I used to and say everything was fine when it wasn't. I speak my mind and they can take it or leave it. They don't have to agree, but they do have to respect that it is my feelings, opinions, desires etc. I believe the cyber world has helped me to be more open not only to others but to myself as well and to better understand myself.

 

[A Desert Rose]

I agree with you all. Nowhere do I say that discussing in cyberspace is a bad thing. I just point out that there are negatives as well as positives.

As human nature goes, we try to put the emphasis on the positive side of things.

Like all of you have stated, learning and exploring, especially regarding BDSM, has had great side effects in other areas of my life, too.

 

[Ebonyfire]

I dunno,

I am pretty much the same online or offline...evil.

Eb

 

[MissTaken]

I enjoy the anonymonity provided by the internet. I show you , on this forum, very real aspects of my character, but by no means, have I shown you every facet that makes up who I am.


Yes, DR, I, too,. have suffered the consequences of losely placed trust. I chalk these episodes up to lessons learned.

I think that I have grown as an individual as I explore my inner self, but also through the enrichment of the many new friends I have made.

I would not have done or experienced any of htese things without the internet.

 

[Azathoth'sPet]

I definately have lost some inhibitions offline because of online interaction. I know I wouldnt have gotten a Master or probably a relationship of this nature without reading stories and then this message board and getting a feeling of what the lifestyle can be about. I didnt understand the beauty in it as much as I do now. I also feel like I've met some great people online (Master included) who I've gotten to know more personally than maybe in person. In person I always try to be amusing and entertaining but online its a little easier for me to open up and just talk.

I agree totally

 

[TheWanderer]

FWIW

I have a very open nature, and people commonly respond to that with openness of their own. It's fairly common for someone to add, after a certain tale from their own experience, "I haven't really told anyone that before."

If anything, I have a little more inhibition online, simply because people can't see looks in eyes, the reassuring smile, and other physical affects that let them know the conversation is safe to continue. All you have is words on the screen.

That, and I'm pretty much the kind of person who'll say damn near anything anyway...

 

[A Desert Rose]

Entering with your eyes down....

The Wanderer says, people can't see me. He is touching on some very good points.

People lurk around all the time. We have no idea who is reading our words or what impact they are having.

The ability to be concealed goes hand in hand with being anonymous. However there are some differences. Others may know a great deal about you through email, chat rooms or instant messaging, but they still cannot see or hear you and vise versa.

In addition to our identity being invisible, being PHYSICALLY invisible enhances the disinhibition effect. No one knows how you look or sound when you type an opinion, conversely, you do not need to worry how others look or sound when they read your words.Seeing signs of disapproval in a real face-to-face situation, a frown, shaking of a head, can end the conversation or a romantic interlude you are engaging in.

We all can picture in our heads, the analyst's couch. Where does the analyist sit? He is out of view of the patient, usually behind. This positioning allows the patient the ability to discuss freely and without inhibition because he does not see the body language or expressions of the analyist. And the anaylist need not worry about betrying his thoughts regarding what is being said by the patient.

It is easier, emotionally, to not have to look into another's face when discussing something personal and emotional. In real life, we will often avert our eyes when doing so. Text communication, especially on a BB, affords us the opportunity to always keep our eyes averted.

 

[catalina_francisco]

I am an extremely open person online or face to face. To me it is intrinsically who I am and how I feel most comfortable living my life. The most positive thing for me is in my teen years I lived a life which consisted of 4 main type personalities...1 for home; 1 for work;1 for friends; and.1 which was for me alone which I now wish I had been courageous enough then to live in all ares to the fullest. This splitting of personas changed when my friend and I were about to go out for the night and she offhandedly said to a comment my mother made, 'Óh you should see her when we are out, she is nothing like she is here'. I still remember the shock, the fear, the insecurity, the guilt that one statement raised in me. I thought about it and decided never again would I place myself in the position where another could unmask me so to speak, intentionaly or unintentionally. The result was I began to live a more honest life and one which made me more comfortable and responsible, no longer having to juggle the variations of me to appease everyone else.

It is not always easy as others do from time to time not only judge me for the way I live my life, but also feel challenged and suspicious of my openness. I cannot do anything about that unless I choose to go back and begin living a life made of neat partitions again, living in fear, living the way everyone else wants me to. I won't do that.

The extension of this life pattern of mine has come through internet connections where I can not only share with others, but benefit from their sharing with me. I have extended myself so far to see things not just through my own eyes, my own understanding, or my own culture, but to be able to attempt to see life through the shared visions and experiences of others. As I am not perfect, I will often come across something that does not necessarily fit with what I believe or like, but I try to keep an open mind and have found in doing so that sometimes I come to see how my disquiet with a particular subject may not have been based on knowledge but more on a conditioned response. It does not mean I necesarily always change my POV, but does mean I always gain a wider notion of what is reality for many people.

I am working at eradicating these former responses in an effort to experience life more fully and completely. So far it seems to have worked. I am often amazed when I look back and see how my understanding has increased over the last 10 years, and how much more I see it developing. The connections have also led me to the life I now live, the realisation of my dream. So for me the net has not so much enabled me to be more open, just to interact with and meet some great people, forever learning and evolving.

Catalina

 

[A Desert Rose]

... I am often amazed when I look back ...
Catalina

Jesus... where did this thread come from? I had completely forgotten I ever posted this one. (A lot of other people had forgotten it, too even when it was new ... not many posts to it.)

Scary. I read the thread title and thought "Who the hell took over my name and started threads with it?"

But I still feel the same way as I did then.

 

[catalina_francisco]

Jesus... where did this thread come from? I had completely forgotten I ever posted this one. (A lot of other people had forgotten it, too even when it was new ... not many posts to it.)

Scary. I read the thread title and thought "Who the hell took over my name and started threads with it?"

But I still feel the same way as I did then.

Was browsing as I do when time permits and came across the thread and could not understand why it was not contributed to more at the time as it is a great topic. Thanks for coming up with it. Also, unlike many, I have not found a duplicate thread.

Catalina

 

[A Desert Rose]

It's not a very sexy thread, so I can see, I guess why no one cares or cared about it.

Typical of most of my threads, though.

 

[catalina_francisco]

It's not a very sexy thread, so I can see, I guess why no one cares or cared about it.

Typical of most of my threads, though.

Not everything is about sex, though an underlying vibration is great. For me, intellect and the ability/desire to use it is one of the most necessary aphrodesiacs in my life.

C

 

[A Desert Rose]

Yes, you are right.

I don't post many sex threads... I tend to reveal too much.

 

[lillum]

If anything I tend to be to open to fast online and in r/l.I am just painfully trusting,honest and in my past its gotten me in to hot of water to fast...lillum

 

[A Desert Rose]

If anything I tend to be to open to fast online and in r/l.I am just painfully trusting,honest and in my past its gotten me in to hot of water to fast...lillum

I am one of those 40somethings who never tried acid. I believed what I was told about the dangers and that was enough to keep me scared off.

Same goes for the internet... I was always warned and had read just enough to be scared and cautious.

And I am a natural skeptic, anyway.

 

[AnelizeDarkEyes]

Interesting thread, ADR. Most of my life was lived very carefully hidden by a succession of masks carefully constructed to keep the world at arm's length, to shunt people away from my again carefully constructed castle walls, which hid that kernel of myself, who was very painfully and powerfully lonely in that prison of my own making.

There was no great miracle, that brought me out from behind the walls. Just sobriety, and a whole hell of a lot of hard work, and the want, and willingness to be *in* the world, and not behind the wall anymore.

So, what does this have to do with this topic?

A few years along my path of work, and discovery, and honesty with myself, I discovered the internet. Wow. A place where I could be anybody--how seductive, how easy it was to immediately put those masks right back on. I role played for awhile, too fearful to be myself out here. I played someone else, in fact, someTHING else entirely LOL. I couldn't be HONEST as a real live PERSON at first.

But it came. I took tentative forays when I found Lit. Slowly but surely, I was able to let myself become more and more relaxed, and open here. To use a "recovery" term....

I let my outsides begin to match my insides.

For me, that's what its all about.

I find the net to be a pretty useful thing in that exercise. This is my "real" self. Myself as submissive. Here, most especially, I want my outsides to match my insides.

~anelize

 

[James G 5]

We all say and do things in cyberspace that we wouldn't normally say or do in the real world. We loosen up and feel less inhibited. Researchers have come to call this the "disinhibition effect."

Anyone have opinions to add?

Dunno about the validity of this
As any of the several people here who know me IRL will testify there're pretty much nothing I say or do online thT I don't also say or do IRL
I talk the same way, big words and all, amd just as much of apompous ass, and really do walk around with my cock hangoing out that much
*shrug*
But maybe it's just me

 

[James G 5]

Re: Entering with your eyes down....

The ability to be concealed goes hand in hand with being anonymous. However there are some differences. Others may know a great deal about you through email, chat rooms or instant messaging, but they still cannot see or hear you and vise versa.

In addition to our identity being invisible, being PHYSICALLY invisible enhances the disinhibition effect. No one knows how you look or sound when you type an opinion, conversely, you do not need to worry how others look or sound when they read your words.Seeing signs of disapproval in a real face-to-face situation, a frown, shaking of a head, can end the conversation or a romantic interlude you are engaging in.

Well, this certainly doesn't apply to those of us who use our real names, post realtime web snaps, and encourage Yahoo webcam chats......
But again, maybe it's just me

 

[catalina_francisco]

Re: Re: Entering with your eyes down....

Well, this certainly doesn't apply to those of us who use our real names, post realtime web snaps, and encourage Yahoo webcam chats......
But again, maybe it's just me

Nah, we use our real names also and have had our pics here and other places, and I have webcammed...have to reconnect that handy device now it is here! I just find it easier to be me here, there, and everywhere then I don't have to think what I have said and where. That is too much work...have seen others who have slipped up and posted one statement here and on another site or two said they do the complete opposite....just give an impression of inauthenticity and dishonesty.

Catalina

 

[Shadowsdream]

I am who I am...here and there.
I speak as I post...think as I say...
I have enjoyed getting to know many wonderful friends through the Internet..friends that have become realtime friends. I have seen how easily dishonesty appears online and simply shrug it off as of no importance...I do not look back on Internet aquaintences that have any aspects of idiocy. But thats just Me..The Impossible Mistress!
But then I am the same in the real world...

 

[catalina_francisco]

I am who I am...here and there.
I speak as I post...think as I say...
I have enjoyed getting to know many wonderful friends through the Internet..friends that have become realtime friends. I have seen how easily dishonesty appears online and simply shrug it off as of no importance...I do not look back on Internet aquaintences that have any aspects of idiocy. But thats just Me..The Impossible Mistress!
But then I am the same in the real world...

Impossible Mistress?!! You sound well adjusted and in touch with reality, not to mention comfortable in your own skin.

Catalina

 

[A Desert Rose]

Re: Re: Entering with your eyes down....

Well, this certainly doesn't apply to those of us who use our real names, post realtime web snaps, and encourage Yahoo webcam chats......
But again, maybe it's just me

I never mentioned webcams in my initial thread post. It does change things somewhat.

I don't know, do my friends who have seen my ugly mug on webcam know me in real life? And my friends who know my real name, does that mean they know me in real life, too? How about those who have my phone number?

I am selective to whom I do share real intimate and personal things. I withold a lot of information and I purposely omit some things. Does that make me a liar? Does it mean I am insincere?

I think if I spoke to any of you on the phone or even in yahoo chat, you would find me as I am here. (Ask me if you would like references... that's a joke by the way, for those who don't know me.)

But the issue is this... people who do qualify as insincere, as liars, or as something they really are not, will not be the ones posting to this thread saying they are. The ones who post here are the ones who say "what you see is what you get" and "this thread does not pertain to me." They are the sincere ones. And in fairness, a lot of the original thread post does not pertain to them.