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Online hostility can feel unusually common because rude comments are visible to large audiences and can travel farther than the people who post them once could reach. That is Leo A. Notenboom’s explanation in his September 12, 2026, Ask Leo! essay—not proof that the number of rude people is growing. A broader psychological framework, online disinhibition, helps explain why some people act more intensely online, but it does not reduce every hostile exchange to one cause.
Why can it seem like there are so many jerks online?
Notenboom opens with a familiar sort of complaint: a commenter tells him, “You’re full of crap. That didn’t work.” In the example, the commenter blames him for a technology tip that apparently was unavailable or could not be found. Notenboom asks whether the internet is turning people into jerks, then offers a more cautious answer: it may be making rude behavior easier to see and giving the people who post it a much bigger audience.
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“The internet and social media aren’t necessarily creating more jerks, but they’re giving existing jerks a bigger audience with more visibility,” he writes. In his account, ordinary people can publish publicly, while hostile posts may attract attention and reach far beyond a face-to-face exchange. As he puts it, “They’re just louder.” This is Notenboom’s explanation of how hostility can feel prevalent, not a measured finding about how common it is.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteCan seeing rude behavior make it seem acceptable?
Notenboom raises a second possibility alongside increased exposure: when people watch others behave rudely without apparent consequences, they may come to see that conduct as socially acceptable and imitate it. The two ideas can work together in his account—platforms make hostile behavior conspicuous, and its visibility may help normalize it. The essay does not establish how often imitation happens or how much it contributes.
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What online disinhibition explains—and what it does not
Psychologist John Suler’s 2004 article, “The Online Disinhibition Effect”, offers a broader framework for understanding why some people disclose more or behave more intensely online than they would in person. Suler writes: “While online, some people self-disclose or act out more frequently or intensely than they would in person.”
Six interacting influences
Suler identifies six factors that can interact: dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection, dissociative imagination, and minimization of authority. Anonymity is only one of them. Suler also notes that personality influences the extent of disinhibition, and cautions against assuming that online behavior simply reveals a person’s one “true self.”
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This framework is context, not a universal explanation for rudeness. It does not show that anonymity alone causes trolling, and it is distinct from Notenboom’s emphasis on visibility and audience. Neither source identifies one cause that accounts for every hostile exchange.
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Does the evidence show that people are becoming ruder?
No trend or statistic in Notenboom’s essay or Suler’s article establishes that rude people are becoming more common. Notenboom’s observation that helpful people may outnumber hostile ones is qualitative, not a measured ratio. The available evidence supports a discussion of why hostility may be more noticeable and how online behavior may differ—not a numerical claim about who is in the majority or whether the internet has changed that balance.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to respond to an abusive comment
Notenboom’s advice is practical: don’t turn a rude exchange into a contest. He says he ignores most abusive comments and, as the owner of a platform, deletes or blocks posts he considers inappropriate. Sometimes he replies to remind a commenter that there is a real person on the other side. Those are his practices and recommendations, not a promise that any one response will change a commenter’s behavior.
Quick Recap
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- Ignore many abusive comments rather than rewarding them with an argument. Notenboom sums this up as “Don’t feed the jerk.”
- Use the platform’s available controls to delete or block inappropriate posts when you have access to them.
- If you choose to respond, avoid becoming abusive in return; retaliation can encourage the behavior rather than resolve it.
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