This is a good observation, and the same can be said about texting vs calling, and calling vs face-to-face communication.

Badically, ego lives in a fantasy land. It believes a lot of things which are not true. It’s in constant pain and it likes to inflict pain upon others or upon itself.

So it likes to imagine that its words on social media or over text are painful for another person, whether directly by being nasty or indirectly by demonstrating superiority. Alternatively, it likes to take offense or see others’ words and actions as painful for itself, whether or not they were intended to be so.

In real life, the situation is different. People are not idiots, and on some level, unconsciously they know when they are being stupid or acting as an asshole, which can bring consequences. So they keep their egos in check, even though it can take some restraining. On the receiving side, there are all sorts of cues which help you read if the insult was deliberate, so even though it can still hurt, there’s much less taking offense.

Social media removes all these brakes. People feel free to inflict much more pain, and they feel free to take much more offense also, which results in a desire to inflict even more pain on the “offending” side. It often spirals out of control. Emojis became popular to mitigate it somewhat, but it’s a very poor substitution to face-to-face communication or even the tone of voice over phone.