Stop taking video game forums so seriously.
Whether the good actually outweighs the bad... ROLLING MY FUCKING EYES HERE
What bad? People can always not post or look at stupid shit.
I'm not just talking about video game forums. I'm talking about how digital interactions affect our general feeling toward other people. The less human, the less real people are to us, the easier it is to hate. Take road rage, for example. Place a couple pieces of glass and a few dozen feet between people, hate can spark instantly. Then, even after getting out of the car and facing each other face to face, the hate that spawned when isolated from each other remains.
Now, how much easier then is it to dehumanize and hate artificial words on a screen that are mere representations of people? If hate grows in that environment, it will remain even after face-to-face contact occurs.
Now, that's not to say dehumanization never occurred before; the Holocaust is an obvious example. But I do feel that the digital age has sort of greased the wheels on the dehumanization process.