# Reading Response #4
## October 10th- Why does digital communication give rise to such toxic behavior, including that of haters and that seen in "bully battles"?
The rise of digital communication has led to an increase in toxicity because it is easier for people to be mean online and hide behind a screen than it is to say hurtful things in person. A lot of bullying and harmful comments stem from feelings of insecurity. People tend to put people down in order to validate themselves and it is easier to do this on social media. This point is reinforced in the article: Alienated: You Fail it! Your Skill Is Not Enough states "an undergraduate is not likely to characterize a professor's work as brain damaged". Nobody would do that in person, but online people can get away with that since there would be no major consequence or face to face confrontation. I am a constant twitter user and oftentimes on twitter, a sports related argument becomes personal attacks. For example, I was reading a thread on Napoli and how they are playing at the level of some of the best teams in the world. One comment was about how the article was an overreaction and Napoli will not sustain that level. Somebody replied to that comment with a picture of the person's profile pic and called them a loser. That was followed by a digging of one user's past tweets and roasts about his opinions and namecalling such as stupid or idiot. This type of hateful behavior does no good, it solely hurts people's feelings and is a waste of time. Additionally, facebook and instagram found millions of pieces of harassment and bullying during the third quarter according to npr.org. Trolling and hate speech is becoming more and more normal and almost accepted since it happens so frequently. According to internal research from npr.com digital communication worsens body image and mental health issues and hate speech is not punished enough or at all. Overall, it is easy to be toxic online with little punishment compared to talking badly about someone to their face with the threat of an altercation or getting in trouble.