Orland Evangelical Free Church | New York Times Readers and Flaming

On Tuesday a new article shot to the top of the Times most e-mailed list. Daniel Goleman's piece was called, "Flame First, Think Later: New Clues to E-Mail Misbehavior". It explores what causes a person to send rude messages.

A significant part of this essay's message comes from the section of the Times in which it is published. It is categorized under "Health".

Fifty years ago, a newspaper article about angry or inappropriate behavior would have been about an incident, not an essay on social patterns. To merit coverage, the incident would have been remarkable - an ill-judged speech at the Rotary luncheon, perhaps, or more likely a criminal act like a brawl.

An article about inappropriate letter composition - if it even occurred to someone to write it - would not have been published in a newspaper, but in some kind of journal about ethics.

Such were people's inhibitions that rude behavior was stunning. Descriptions of the bizarre were reserved for salacious novels - if you could find them.

Now the incidents come in "a steady stream of instant messages" like those sent and received by middle-schoolers. The stream is copious enough to be studied in "the emerging field of social neuroscience" and analyzed in Goleman's newspaper piece. And the piece gets sent hither and yon by impulsive e-mailers.

Call your shrink.

Flaming is "sending a message that is taken as offensive, embarrassing or downright rude." The cause of it, psychologists say, is the "online disinhibition effect".  When someone is at the keyboard, his inhibitions are lowered by his "anonymity" online, his "invisibility" to others, "the exaggerated sense of self from being alone", and the absence of an "authority figure". There is also a "time lag between sending an e-mail message and getting feedback".

Goleman elucidates the science of that time lag.

When two people interact face-to-face, they have a wealth of social information from facial expressions, tones of voice, and body language. "[T]he brain reads a continual cascade of emotional signs and social cues, instantaneously using them to guide our next move so that the encounter goes well." The online time lag without interactive information for guidance opens real dangers.

Goleman cites a 2002 experiment with pairs of college students getting to know each other online from separate booths. "While coming and going into the lab, the students were well behaved. But the experimenter was stunned to see the messages many of the students sent. About 20 percent of the e-mail conversations immediately became outrageously lewd or simply rude."

Lower the inhibitions and self-expression takes a nasty turn.

The science of human interaction fascinates me. But the compelling realization comes from one of our culture's contradictions.

Our society preaches the self as the gateway to authenticity. From every quarter we hear that authenticity and truth come from the wisdom each of us has within. Yet, when the self is most free we cannot tolerate the results. Liberate the self from the constraints of relationship - name, face, and instant response - and we find a monster.

It's possible the internet offers the most unvarnished look yet into the contents of the human soul. We can hide. But how can we change?