Question

I simply do not understand why people can be so cruel and especially on social media where their cruel comments are there forever. I am glad that your daughter has such a strong support system.

Answer 1

Ans) Yes SM affordances (Visibility, persistence, spread) can amplify and provide a new mechanism for cruelty due to:

-Increases audiences: increases concern for
a. Performative interpersonal conflict with a larger audience

2. Attention economy: sharing content has currency and the ability to share cultural artifact
a. amplified by economics of popularity moderation

3. Celebrity in Everyday life - blurred line with public figures
a. Interact on the same platforms ( same publics)
b. BM blurs the line between good/bad attn. value in clicks
c. Unclear norms of interaction-> legal ramifications
d. Micro celebrities= fame among niche crowd without the structures of support for a real celebrity.

4. Spreadabiilty can lead to mass public shaming.

ii. BUT not new: gossip is essential to society (especially youth) for bond building.
1. Brokers status, creates id, group formation
2. Especially important for teens who lack power besides status.

- The concern of "cyberbullying" has arisen

- Although data suggests otherwise, parents think that social media radically increases bullying.

- There are so many different definitions and understandings of bullying that it is hard for the public to understand

- Social media makes bullying even more difficult to understand.

-The persistence and visibility of bullying in networked publics adds a new dimension to how bullying is constructed and understood. Social media networks may make for a larger audience of bullying / more witnesses.

- Rather than serving as a valuable tool for creating conversations between children and their parents, visibility often further complicates how parents and other adults understand bullying.

-When adults reframe every interpersonal con ict in terms of bullying or focus on determining who's at fault and punishing that per- son, they also lose a valuable opportunity to help teens navigate the complicated interpersonal dynamics and social challenges that they face.

-While many adults use bullying to mean every form of youth meanness and cruelty, teenagers use the term more conservatively.

-Alongside the interpersonal conflict that occurs, teens grapple with how others perceive them. Technology can amplify existing dramas, but it can also create new mechanisms for meanness and cruelty to unfold.

-Acts of meanness and cruelty, pranking and punking, gossip and bullying, and digital self-harm are all wrapped up in other personal, interpersonal, and social dynamics.

-Because social media makes it easy to share information broadly, people can also easily spread hurtful gossip in an effort to assert status, get attention, or relieve boredom. These dynamics are often intertwined.

-To maximize attention, Facebook designs algorithms to perfect the gossip machine.

-Social media is situated within an attention economy in which technologies are built to capture and sustain the interest of users.

-When teens achieve overwhelming attention and visibility online, positive feedback and negative attacks often go hand in hand.

-As teens engage with networked publics, they must negotiate a social ecosystem in which their peers are not only hanging out but also jockeying for social status. In these settings, interpersonal conflicts emerge and teens participate in battles over reputation, status, and popularity.

-Although new forms of drama and a home through social media, teens' behaviors have not significantly changed.