22 Jul 2017

Social cooling: toning down online behaviour

From This Way Up, 12:40 pm on 22 July 2017

When the world wide web spread it's tendrils into our homes a few decades ago, observers and sociologists noticed people becoming disinhibited in these virtual spaces: you could say and do what you wanted, stuff you probably wouldn't do in real life.

Fast forward to today, and technology critic Tijmen Schep reckons we're seeing another online phonomenon  - he calls it 'social cooling'.

Social cooling means we sanitise and self-censor our views, and avoid saying the wrong thing or offending anyone, because we're obsessed with how we're perceived and rated online.