Summary: The online disinhibition effect describes the loosening of social restrictions and inhibitions that are normally present in face-to-face interactions that takes place in interactions on the Internet.
Originators and Key Contributors: In 2004, John Suler, professor of psychology at Rider University, published an article titled “The Online Disinhibition Effect,” which analyzed characteristics of internet interactions that contributed to this effect[1]. The term “online disinhibition effect” was already in use at the time.
Keywords: online, internet, anonymity, invisibility, imagination, disinhibition