What motivates 'griefers' in online games / forums?

Anyone who is part of or been part of an online community / game will have met a griefer or two in their time.


A griefer is a term used to describe people who for no reason simply cause problems in these online wolds / games /communities. They may flood a chat room with profanity. Shoot their team mates in the back in online games or simply post rubbish on sites such as yahoo answers :). Now I know it isnt a age related thing. not all of them are little 12-14 year olds with nothing better to do. Many are quite normal lets say 20-40 years old with good jobs and happy fmaily lifes yet every night they go online and do as muchj to annoy complete strangers as they can.


What do you think motivates people so try and cause problems / upset people without any cause in this manner?

What motivates 'griefers' in online games / forums?
I think this site would be very dull and not much used if people only asked real questions that they want the answer to. I agree that abuse, racism and all other nasty things are not welcome in real life nor should they be here - l dont see the harm in a little fun with peoples (including mine) dumb questions just to raise a bit of debate. I quite like answering dumb questions because if you answer them in the spitit they are obviously written its fun - People that respond to nasty and abusive questions only encourage more - If those dumb morons had no responses they would ask no further questions.
Reply:Lets see. I'd suggest any number of the following of which one or more may be the cause.


1) Boredom


2) Anonymity


3) Lack of respect


4) Lack of attention


5) Because they can


6) Because it provokes a reaction

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