Music 256a hw7
Reading response
Principle 7.7. A little anonymity can go a long way.
While reading Chapter 7 of Artful Design, I found myself coming back to this question of anonymity and how we might weigh its benefits with its potential dangers.
Like the reading mentions, it is true that the ability to interact with others anonymously is a powerfully liberating tool. I, myself, find that in spaces, especially within the classroom, the option to pose questions or suggest solutions anonymously often helps me participate in ways that I otherwise might not have due to insecurity or social pressure. We even see these abilities on class forum platforms like Ed or Piazza, where students have the option to post a question anonymously to their classmates. Even the dance team that I’m on has an anonymous feedback form where any of our teammates can submit comments, questions, or concerns about anything that go directly to our leadership team. Anonymity can allow us to be more genuine, less abashed versions of ourselves — versions that don’t fear trying and failing new things or forging relationships with total or familiar strangers.
At the same time, however, when I took CS 278: Social Computing, we also learned that anonymity also has the potential to be liberating in a negative way. Generally speaking, anonymity is a form of dissociation from one’s “real” identity, causing people to feel less inhibited or tied to subsequent consequences. As a result, people may feel less monitored when they interact online, potentially leading to unintended consequences like bully, trolling, hate speech, flame wars, etc. Additionally, with anonymity, people may receive less social cues from others since they can’t see others’ facial expressions or reactions. Thus, in the same way that it’s easier to pose a potentially “dumb question” or try something new when anonymous, it’s also easier to say something potentially offensive when you have a username to hide behind. Anonymity may lead to a lack of accountability and social repercussions.
So, how do we balance this desire to artfully design as free of an experience as possible while still protecting users against these potential pitfalls? How can we balance fostering a liberated community while still maintaining a safe space?
Even more, should we even be trying to achieve both these goals within an anonymous space? Or, should the goal be to remove the need for anonymity in the first place? I remember the quarter I took CS 193X, our lecturer Michael Chang prefaced the course and introduced our class Ed by saying that he hoped that our class community might be one where people feel comfortable asking questions non-anonymously. Even just setting the tone and establishing our Ed as a “safe space” immediately made me more willing to ask questions freely and forgo checking the “post anonymously” checkbox. It somehow shifted my perspective from worrying about appearing dumb to realizing that if someone judged me for a question I asked, the problem was them and their attitudes.
