The Generational Toxicity Gradient Across Online Conversation Contexts (IMAGE)

Tsinghua University Press

The Generational Toxicity Gradient Across Online Conversation Contexts

Caption

The study's generational analysis compares the influence of a comment's immediate parent (P), grandparent (GP) and great-grandparent (GGP) across four types of Reddit conversation trees. Immediate parent comments provide the strongest analytical signal in highly toxic, moderately toxic and high-engagement discussions, while great-grandparent comments are most informative in less-toxic conversations. This reversal shows that toxicity propagation depends on the surrounding conversational context rather than following a simple decline with distance.

Credit

Agarwal, N. and Falade, T. (2026), Journal of Social Computing, Tsinghua University Press.

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