Why have so many people online become so mean and hostile?

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Apologies if this isn’t the right subforum, feel free to move it if needed. I would love people to hear me out and tell me their thoughts.

Lately, I’ve noticed that on platforms like YouTube and Reddit, online culture feels increasingly hostile. It seems that if I’m not perfectly clear and direct with my words, or if I phrase something the “wrong” way, I’m met with open aggression instead of curiosity or empathy. I find that really discouraging, especially because I always try to approach others with understanding and respect and I'd rather not constantly step on eggshells.

I understand that tone and body language are hard to convey online. Without those signals, misunderstandings happen very easily, and I think that contributes to people being more emotionally reactive, judgmental, and desensitized, and there exists an instinctive rejection of difference. But I feel like this pattern has only become increasingly normalized across the internet, and that says something worrying to where digital culture is heading.

It’s easy to see why social media very often harms mental health, especially in excess. Constant exposure to negativity and hostility online can make people withdraw, but it's addictive which makes it harder for many including myself to avoid.

I’m not trying to be preachy, but I really do think this dynamic hurts society quite a lot. Too much empathy can sometimes lead to passivity, sure, but too little empathy makes people feel alienated, misunderstood, and afraid to speak openly and honestly.

The only partial “solutions” I’ve found are using social media less often, and writing extra clearly and directly to avoid misunderstandings. I do suppose a better outlook can help, but I am disappointed that things can’t just be better.

Last edited by FlaminPika on 01 Nov 2025, 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think you make some fair points there

I appreciate that you feel similar! I have found a youtube video that also encapsulates this issue in a really neat way. It is a really serious issue and I worry for the youngest generations.

Most humans are stressed out, exhausted and miserable. Since they can neither fight nor flee from such problems they take it out on other people, mainly the ones who are different.

A sense of anonymity gives people a perception they have the freedom and opportunity to speak their mind with minimal consequence. I imagine it must also be addictive with young people logged into whatsapp and other platforms simultaneously asynchronous and synchronous engagement.

I myself have never engaged with social media so can only imagine.

The environment that is most politically beneficial to people like Rump.is to keep and create stress between people.
So they will not get together and vote him out of office. And this seems to be reflected in many types of media now..
So the side effect is people become. meaner . imho

Humans are toxic offline, too. Last week I was at Walmart and took a quick look at the Happy Meal toys at their McDonald's, and I noticed a sign telling people not to be nasty to the workers or anyone else. The fact that they have to put those signs up in the first place is showing how horrible people have become.

The Trump elections, the Covid pandemic, The Russia-Ukraine war, climate change, they've all poisoned humans' brains.

yeah, some spillover...

The thing I hate about online is that everybody has to be right all the flipping time

What's that all about. Chill out peeps

We've had those since forever here. Generally it means you're going to get terrible service from indifferent people and you're best advised, if at all possible, to take your custom elsewhere (often it's places like the post office or GP where you can't). I've been minded to take my own sign in and stick it over theirs "Our staff have the right to be useless and incompetent jobsworths without being called to account for it"

Many people increasingly more selfish, entitled and less aware of others. It was happening already but the covid thing exacerbated it.

This is the sort of statement that many will tell you is just perception and difficult/impossible to quantify but I can/have literally measured it by the number of examples of very selfish, or completely unaware/ignorant of others incidents while driving.

And yeah, spillover into social media is inevitable. I've posted on online forums/bulletin boards for about 30 years now, I've always preferred the structured and long-term conversational nature to the more dynamic algorithm driven forms of social media. Every forum I've ever posted in has, as a more or less constant theme, posts complaining that the forum isn't as good as it used to be. I recently departed one after over 20 years, a big one that besides it's core theme had a large and active sub-forum set covering a diverse range of topics, and on which friendly posters would often go to some effort and research to answer questions. I asked a question on one regarding planning permission process - declined some requests that I post up plans pointing out I was specifically interested in the process and my/the councils obligations/rights etc rather than peoples opinions of said plans - someone then, using a couple of breadcrumbs in my post, searched the councils site to find the plans and post them up, doxing me in the process...

That someone would go to such effort - either they were extremely lucky or they must have taken ages - just to win the internet that day in a stupid little forum just brought home to me how much things have changed. A lot of posters today seem to require that someone is wrong for them to be right, that someone is upset for them to feel joy, like it's some kind of zero sum. This isn't "discussion" whereby one may take a counter view and be combative over it's dissection, it's argument for arguments sake, misinterpreting to suit an entirely different narrative, picking up irrelevant details and making them the focus (right down to typos) and so on. And if they can get a post moderated or banned thats the highest form of art. Things that have always existed, but the ratio inverting to the point that I just felt trying to have honest discussion in said space to be a pointless endeavour. In fairness, I think my manner of posting and lack of conforming to social rules may not be welcome in a lot of NT spaces. I think online spaces in general were probably far more ND back in the day.

There are over 8 billion people in the world. The more humans there are, the less humanity there is. Quite ironic. I guess the only real solution then, is for the human population to greatly decrease. Of course, it will take an extreme global catastrophe for that to actually happen. Then maybe this broken society will be fixed. If there is a society and the world is still inhabitable. But I doubt it very much.

Doomed if we do. Doomed if we don't.

Yes absolutely. And so many are not real. It's all set up for more interaction for money and influence. Reasons why I'm so glad I asked my friend for a place to talk to people and he referred me here!!