Do you be trolling?

According to a Nottingham Trent University study, 59.5 per cent of gamers admit to trolling online.

Don’t know what that is? Well, that’s because you probably have too much of a life.

Either that, or you’re in 40.5 per cent that doesn’t do it.

According to the fount of all knowledge (Wikipedia) trolling, in internet slang, is posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community such as a forum, chat room, or blog.

The study defined trolling as “intentionally provoking or antagonising users in an online environment”.

For example, let’s say someone just explained something to you extremely clearly and in a calm and reasonable way online. Like this. It’s not obvious, it’s not explicit, but by Christ is it annoying.

In fact, the more implicit you can pull it off the more points you get. It’s like, well, God said. In Futurama. On TV. Anywho, back to the study.

Those who participated in the trolling tended to “be younger, male and play for longer sessions”. Reasons for the trolling included that it was amusing and entertaining and that the person doing the trolling was bored.

A fifth of those who trolled said they had no reason for doing it. In the same study it was found that 47 per cent of people taking part had either frequently, very frequently or always witnessed trolling in the last year.

To be fair, the large proportion of that 47 per cent were probably all doing the trolling.

Do you get trolled all the time? Are you New Zealand’s biggest troller? Troll troll troll, troll troll troll troll.

Let us know what you think about troll, troll troll troll, in the box below. Troll.