What is it that makes people so mean on the internet?

[Silver]

I remember the first thing I ever did on an internet chatroom, and probably the first thing I ever communicated to another country through the internet was type "hey dickhead" to a random american man and I sat there laughing my head off with my friend when he replied with "hey what's your problem?".  I think I was 13 or something at the time.

But anyway to get onto the question, I think there's different levels and reasons.  In cases like my situation when I was 13, some people are immature and the internet is new to them and calling someone in another country a dickhead is the funniest thing ever.  

In other more severe cases I think it can be because there's a lot of people out there with mental disorders, to simply just people who are fucked in the head who want to cause people suffering.

My first experience with the internet was as a teenager in high school, and it was on a Dawson's Creek forum, because that was the show everyone was watching back then.

I remember reading some of the comments and thinking, "Oh, this is fun".

My first experience with the internet made me a life-long addict.