A few years ago, internet comments were seen as a place for discussion, debate, and the exchange of opinions. Today, it is enough to open almost any high-profile publication to see a completely different picture – insults, mockery, humiliation, and emotional cruelty that sometimes looks worse than the news itself. Social networks are increasingly turning into an arena for collective aggression.

What is particularly alarming is that aggression has begun to be perceived as the norm of digital communication. People easily write things to strangers that they would never say in person. Behind the screen, the fear of the interlocutor's reaction disappears, the sense of personal responsibility fades, and emotional tension finds a convenient outlet through comments.

Today, the internet has given people the ability to instantly vent anger, anxiety, and inner irritation onto thousands of others simultaneously. Gradually, society is beginning to become accustomed to cruelty as a common element of everyday communication.

In everyday life, human behavior is constrained by numerous internal and external mechanisms. People fear judgment, the reaction of the interlocutor, and the consequences of their own words. Even during a conflict, a person sees the other's emotions – fear, pain, confusion, or aggression in response. This automatically triggers empathy and forces them to control themselves.

The internet works quite differently. The screen creates a psychological distance between the person and their victim. The commenter does not see the interlocutor's eyes, does not hear their tone, and does not encounter a live emotional reaction. As a result, the level of empathy decreases, and the feelings of others begin to be perceived abstractly and almost unrealistically.

The effect of anonymity plays a special role. Even if the account is not completely hidden, a person gets the feeling that they are dissolving into the digital mass. The psyche perceives this as a reduction in personal responsibility. Furthermore, social networks create a dangerous sense of impunity. In real life, aggression can lead to immediate conflict, public condemnation, or fear of physical reaction. On the internet, the consequences seem distant and vague. A person writes an impulsive comment, receives emotional release, and almost never faces direct responsibility for the harm caused.

Essentially, the internet does not create aggression from scratch; it merely removes the internal constraints that normally restrain a person from cruelty in everyday life. The digital environment becomes a kind of psychological amplifier for what a person already carries within themselves.

Comments on social networks are increasingly used not for discussion, but for release. A person visits a post for the opportunity to vent irritation, and sometimes a single phrase is enough to trigger a chain reaction of aggression, where people begin attacking each other not because of the topic under discussion, but because of their own inner tension.

Paradoxically, hate often gives a person a temporary feeling of power and control. By insulting another, the person momentarily ceases to feel weak, anxious, or powerless. This is especially evident during periods of social instability, when people's sense of inner helplessness intensifies.

Over time, aggression begins to be perceived as a form of digital entertainment. Many users no longer read publications for information but subconsciously seek emotional conflict – a place where they can lash out, get an emotional rush, and feel part of a noisy virtual crowd.

One of the most dangerous features of social networks is that emotions on the internet spread almost instantly. If just a few people start an aggressive attack, other users quickly pick up on the general mood. In psychology, this is called the emotional contagion effect, where a person unconsciously adopts the emotions of those around them, especially if they see that these emotions are supported by the majority.

The desire to be part of a group has a particularly strong influence, as it is extremely important for the human psyche to feel a sense of belonging to the majority. On the internet, this manifests through likes, support for aggressive comments, and the desire to fit in with the general mood of the discussion. If the crowd is hostile, it becomes psychologically easier for a person to be cruel themselves.

This is how the phenomenon of the virtual pack is formed, where within the digital crowd, the individual partially dissolves, and individual morality begins to yield to collective emotions. A person says and does things that, in ordinary life, they might be ashamed of. Moreover, aggression begins to be perceived as socially approved behavior if it is supported by hundreds of other users.

The more aggression a person sees in the comments, the easier it becomes for them to be aggressive themselves. Gradually, the psyche adapts to cruelty, and emotional violence begins to be perceived as a normal part of digital communication.

When it comes to internet aggression, many want to divide people into "normal" and "toxic." However, the reality is far more alarming. Very ordinary people often participate in cyberbullying – people with no criminal past, no pronounced cruelty in everyday life, and not even a tendency towards open conflict.

The problem is that the conditions of the digital crowd change human behavior. When aggression becomes mass, personal responsibility gradually erodes. A person stops perceiving their words as something significant because there are already hundreds of similar comments around them.

Especially dangerous is the combination of emotional fatigue, inner anxiety, and a sense of impunity. Sometimes the most aggressive commenter is not a cruel criminal, but an emotionally exhausted person to whom the internet suddenly gave an audience, an opportunity to vent accumulated irritation, and the illusion of complete freedom from consequences.

For a long time, internet aggression was perceived as something trivial – just comments, emotions, virtual conflicts. However, today specialists increasingly view cyberbullying as a full-fledged form of psychological violence capable of inflicting real psychological trauma on a person.

In many cases, online bullying leads to self-destructive behavior: social isolation, anxiety disorders, depressive states, and emotional exhaustion. A person begins to avoid communication, loses a sense of security, and gradually begins to perceive themselves through the prism of others' aggression.

Particularly concerning is that digital conflicts are increasingly spilling beyond the internet. Anonymous threats, harassment, doxxing, collective bullying, and psychological pressure often translate into real life. The internet has ceased to be a virtual space unconnected from consequences. Today, digital aggression can destroy a person's reputation, psyche, and social life no less painfully than offline violence.

Modern humans spend a huge part of their lives in the digital environment. And when day after day they see aggression, humiliation, and emotional cruelty, the psyche gradually begins to perceive this as the norm of human communication. People get used to hate, to bullying, to collective humiliation, just as they once got used to the noise of a big city – first it shocks, then it irritates, and then it becomes a familiar background.

But the most dangerous thing in this story is not even the aggressive comments themselves. The most dangerous thing is society's habituation to cruelty. The moment a person stops being surprised by the humiliation of others, stops noticing emotional violence, and begins to perceive it as a natural part of digital life.

And if society gradually loses sensitivity to the pain of others on the internet, then over time, it risks losing it in real life as well.

Kazbek AKHMETOV,
Psychologist, Doctoral Candidate
at Al-Farabi KazNU