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Internet Personality Disorders
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Internet Personality Disorders I just finished reading a funny but informative article by Jonathan Kimak called "Six New Personality Disorders Caused by the Internet." Instead of just copying and pasting his funny article, which would be against the TOU, I thought I'd do a more serious expose of the real personality disorders he discusses and suggest ways in which these disorder manifest themselves in our online social interactions. I'm sure we've all seen people around us behaving in bizarre and socially unacceptable ways. Perhaps this blog entry will help you psychoanalyze your online nemesis and come up with a helpful way to deal with him or her. 1. Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) - According to the Mayo Clinic, IED is characterized by repeated episodes of violent or aggressive behaviour that are grossly out of proportion to the situation that sparked the behaviour. After the explosive episode is over, the person may feel remorse, regret or embarassment. In person-to-person interactions, someone with IED can physically injure people and cause destruction of property. The episode will generally last 10 or 20 minutes. People with IED are perceived to be always angry, and they experience other problems, such as job loss, divorce, auto accidents and incarceration. Between episodes of IED, there can be weeks or even months of normal, nonaggressive behaviour. Episodes may be preceded or accompanied by irritability, increased energy, rage, tingling, tremors, palpitations, chest tightness, and a headache or a feeling of pressure in the head. The causes of the disorder could be anything from growing up in a violent or abusive household, to a problem with the way serotonin works in the brain, or from high levels of testosterone. People most likely to have IED are males in their 20s, who were victims of physical or verbal abuse and who have other mental health issues and/or substance abuse problems. Online Intermittent Explosive Disorder - Like the real disorder, for periods of time, the person will carry on normal, funny or charming conversations. Then, all of a sudden, the person will explode into a tantrum for almost no reason. Kimak suggests that IED happens online because there's no fear of being punched in the face online, if we vent our anger. He also says that we do it to protect our reputations and assert our superiority. He also points out that sometimes we intentionally overdo things on the Internet in an attempt to convey our full emotions, without facial and verbal cues. So the person who is screaming in all caps at you may, in reality, be sitting in his cubicle at work, perfectly calm, drinking a latte. Here's a classic example of IED online: IED Guy: Hey guys I made this Photoshop, can I get some constructive criticism? Normal poster: You might want to cut six or seven of the lens flares. IED Guy: FUCK YOU YOU COMMUNIST FUCKTARD. I HAVE WON AWARDS FOR MY WORK WHILE YOU WERE BUSY JERKING OFF IN YOUR PARENTS BASEMENT AND PLAYING DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS- (This continues for 2,000 words or so.) 2. Low Frustration Tolerance (LFT) - This disorder is a concept developed by psychologist Albert Ellis, and is also referred to as "Short-term Hedonism." Psychologist Vijai P. Sharma sums up LFT nicely by describing it as stewing and seething in thoughts, like "I must be accepted and appreciated by everyone for everything I do," "You must always support me and put me above everyone and everything else. Spoil me without expecting anything from me in return," and "All circumstances must be exactly the way I want them, and if they are not, my life is terrible, you're terrible, and this place is terrible." LFT sufferers get very frustrated, very easily and have an unwillingness or inability to tolerate the necessary short-term discomfort that is sometimes required for long-term gain. Online Low Forum Frustration Tolerance - Kimak describes this condition with the example of someone posting a thread on a forum, constantly refreshing the screen to see if anyone has answered, and then posting "What, nobody has a comment? Helloooo???" when responses don't show up fast enough to please the person. His explanation for this behaviour is that the Internet has trained us to expect immediate gratification. We look at fellow posters not as people, but as "pieces of content...that need to be delivered the instant we want them." 3. Munchausen Syndrome - I already wrote a long blog about this mental disorder: Munchausen by Internet. This is a mental illness called a "factitious disorder." In Munchausen syndrome, the "patients" fake an illness because they crave the attention, care and sympathy that sick people get. They will even go so far as to consult multiple doctors and undergo tests and even surgery for their faked conditions. People with this disorder don't generally do it for monetary gain. They do it to get attention, lenience, act out anger and jealousy, and/or control others. It's truly a mental illness. The cause of it is unknown. Munchausen by Internet - Dr. Mark D. Feldman, a specialist in Munchausen syndrome, has identified a new variation on the disorder that he calls "Munchausen by Internet," but the disorder hasn't been accepted into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR. People with this condition join online medical support groups and carry out their deception through the chat and forum communities online. They create multiple accounts and pose as friends and family members of the "sick" person, to try to make it more convincing. The disorder can involve faking a severe illness or being the victim of stalking, harassment, and physical or sexual abuse. It can also be carried out "by proxy," where the person pretends that his or someone close to him is suffering from any of the above conditions. In the "by proxy" cases, sometimes the perpetrator will play the role of a victim and other times the role of a hero, but the intent is still to garner attention. Munchausen by Internet is becoming so common that the term "pseuicide" is widely in use to jokingly describe it. Here's the definition from the Urban Dictionary: "Faking a terminal illness or death on the internet. May be done for the lulz, to get sympathy and lip gloss, or to see who your real friends are. A pseuicide usually divides a web community into suckers and insensitive douchebags. Death announcements can be made by a sockpuppet." 4. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) - This is not the same as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). OCPD is a personality disorder in which a person is overly concerned with rules, orderliness and control. It most often occurs in men. Some of the symptoms are excessive devotion to work; inflexibility; inability to throw things away, even when the objects have no value; lack of generosity; limited expression of affection; perfectionism; preoccupation with details, rules, and lists; and a reluctance to allow others to do things. Online Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder - Kimak considers grammar nazis, and those like them, to be sufferring from this disorder. People who look around themselves online and see too much evidence that the world is becoming "sloppier, dirtier and more disorganized than it should be" will take up arms against it, by imposing rules, criticizing people's grammar, and typing in full sentences. 5. Attention-Seeking Behaviour - This is one of the "histrionic" personality disorders, in which a person excessively seeks attention and is overly dramatic and emotional. Their self-esteem depends on being the centre of attention, and they often try to attract attention with their physical looks/beauty and sexual seduction. People who are attention seekers are uncomfortable when not the centre of attention; are inappropriately sexually provocative; have shallow, rapidly changing emotions; won't focus on details and only talk about things in impressionistic generalities; have dramatic and exaggerated emotions; and are easily influenced by others. This disorder occurs most often in women. Low Cyber Self-Esteem - These are the people with the online equivalent of Attention-Seeking Behaviour, who believe that any attention is good attention and have a strange need for self-abasement, perhaps as punishment for some wrongdoing. People who are mostly disliked by everyone in a forum and who are insulted, banned or told to take a hike, but continue to come back for more abuse, are a good example. And, of course, here on FriendFinder-x there's no shortage of those who try to attract attention with naked pictures of themselves (or someone more attractive) and cam shows where they'll suffer through endless insults, but somehow come out of it feeling good about themselves. 6. Asperger's Syndrome - WebMD describes the main symptom of this mild form of autism as "severe trouble with social situations." There are many symptoms of the disorder that vary from patient to patient and are far too complex to get into here. But two symptoms that are most comparable to social problems on the Internet are a perceived lack of empathy and an inability to pick up on social cues, such as body language and the give and take of a normal conversation. Internet Asperger's Syndrome/The Troll - Blogger Jason Calacanis came up with the term "Internet Asperger's Syndrome" to describe people who have completely dispersed with all social rules and empathy in their online socializing. Obviously, people with Asperger's don't turn into Internet trolls, but Calacanis theorizes that the absence of facial expressions and nonverbal cues online leads to a complete lack of empathy in some people. Essentially, when we're online, we're putting ourselves in the socially disadvantaged position of someone with Asperger's, and this is what allows trolls to be so horrible to everyone around them, anonymously mocking people's misfortune, spouting hatred, or posting videos of 2 year olds smoking cigarettes. Unfortunately, we can't send all of cyberspace into therapy, so I'll just end this blog entry with a quote from my friend kregor3: Praise the Lord and pass the medication! 
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The part about Munchausen by Internet is a repeat, but all the other disorders are new. In a way, I'd say that the Internet actually brings out some of these disorders in people. I think, in our day-to-day lives, we hide some of our problems, so we don't get punched in the face. But once we're anonymous, we let it all hang out. I like your last line. I've wanted to say that before, to a number of troublemakers, but I'm not interested in what they'll say back to me. So I try to live by the rule that I'd love to quote to them. It's a catch 22 I guess.
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I do think that some people use the internet as a way of expressing themselves in a manner they would never do in real life. If it's associated with a particular syndrome, then so be it. The study itself is very interesting to be sure. How people become more bold, or shy when using the computer. I'm sure a phd. study could be done on these topics. If it hasn't been done already. A book has obviously been written on the subject. Studying human behavior has always fascinated me. This was a good read...thanks for sharing. Bud Always Ready for Fun.
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Did you type that twice? Did you type that twice? I agree. If I were a psych major, I think my Ph.D. would be on personality disorders and how they manifest themselves on the Internet. It would be a fascinating and endless topic! On the positive side of things, I do think that online socializing can actually help people work through some of their problems, particularly things like shyness, self-esteem, conflict resolution, anger management, etc.
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I do think that some people use the internet as a way of expressing themselves in a manner they would never do in real life. If it's associated with a particular syndrome, then so be it. The study itself is very interesting to be sure. How people become more bold, or shy when using the computer. I'm sure a phd. study could be done on these topics. If it hasn't been done already. A book has obviously been written on the subject. Studying human behavior has always fascinated me. This was a good read...thanks for sharing. Bud I'd love to read a book on the subject, but I've only come across short studies and funny articles on it. But there MUST be something more comprehensive out there. I read that some scientists in Israel have come up with software that can pick out depressed people by their writing style in blogs, so I'm sure it's a popular field of study.
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