The Offline Roots of Online Hostility: Adult And Childhood Administrative Records Correlate With Individual-Level Hostility on Twitter
2nd November 2025
Using a dataset linking administrative government data to the online behavior of Danish Twitter users, this study estimates the associations between hostility in social media interactions and offline individual-level dispositions and childhood environments. The study shows that users with many more criminal verdicts, more time spent in foster care, better primary school grades, and higher childhood socioeconomic status are more hostile on social media, in part, because such factors predict online engagement in political discussions, which is a major correlate of hostility. This research not only broadens our understanding of the drivers behind social media aggression but also suggests that interventions to reduce online hostility must consider the complex interplay of online and offline lives.