What you described sounds like the same kind of social pressures that can happen in person. Some people mask a lot in RL (not in the meaning of trying to be deceptive, but more like trying to hold back on the parts that may put off others, or feel embarrassing or shameful to display). Some people show up differently at work than they do at home. Things like that. I do think the internet makes it easier to mask and easier to "reinvent" yourself, but even in text alone, patterns still show through and surface level changes in ideology don't immediately change the underlying behavior of a person.

Either way, I do still think it's a valid point about culture and social pressures in general, and about how actualization as an individual cannot be achieved while people don't have basic needs met. I'm just not sure the internet is all that different from RL in this way. If anything, I'd say the internet applies less social pressure because of the anonymity and as a result, people are more able to be unfiltered (for better or worse). Some people would argue the internet can be nastier than RL words because people feel safe behind the anonymity to get away with it, but I suspect it's more like, people living in a brutal imperial core kind of culture are already socialized to think in brutal ways. In RL, the mask of liberalism shames you for showing this socializing overtly. But online, it's easier to be mask off without consequences. It's just that mask off doesn't always mean such reactionary things. For some people, mask off might be relaxing a constrained way of speaking and infodumping on whatever topic comes to mind.

Internet interactions can not beat real life interactions, but not everyone is able to have those real life interactions and if they are, they are not always frequent. Internet interactions can help fill the void if a person is chatting with good people.

I think Facebook is proof that an online existence doesn't necessarily need to be anonymous in order to be unhealthy.

I dont think that the anonymity or the not being tied down are really that bad

The getting to try on a new face online with no judgement or ties to my in person life have if anything led me into becoming the person I am today

If I hadn't made a new set of accounts when I started thinking I could be trans I wouldn't have survived this long because I would have kept all that dysphoria bottled up until my life would have ended far before the point I am at now

If i hadn't been able to make new accounts for asking political questions about things I didnt want people to know I was questioning I wouldn't have been able to form the views I have today because I would have stayed stuck in the free market capitalist bubble I was in for most of my life.

The anonymity allows for new connections and growth just as much if not more than the amount of issues it caused and at least in my opinion showcases the kindness of people because even with that non personal connection my life has been saved several times by people whose names I will never know and faces I will never see just like they won't ever see my face and most won't know my name

Not only can you switch out masks to live different online lives, but also, it's an inherently alienated form of social interaction where no one has a face or physical body to empathize with. We're dehumanized floating text in the chat/forum/comments.

I don't know if this is inherently unhealthy, or if it just requires proper training to live in this very different form of social existence, but I do think it's to blame for online arguments being so fruitless. When I try to explain to someone that they're wrong about a historical fact, I'm not actually doing it as a equal human being. Again, I'm just floating text - a random encounter in the posting RPG.