Social media addiction linked to cyberbullying

That's why people (in general) are not nearly as mean or rude on a voice call or a 1-to-1 text chat. When you hear someone's voice or actually engage with a real time conversation (like a text chat, which you can't as easily just walk away from), they develop an interiority to you that forces you to empathize with them. The physical world is the ultimate version of this: seeing a person's body and face forces you to acknowledge their internal life, because the shared physical experience forces it. That's why it's a much higher barrier to bully or be bullied in the physical world.

There are exceptions to this, obviously. Tight knit forums, irc rooms, small moderated communities have an empathetic cost of interaction. But those are not really "social media", imho.

You read my comment in your mind's voice, entirely with your own biases. And the fact that you choose to read & respond to my comment over any other means that the "conversation" we are having is with the disembodied voice (my voice) in your head with another disembodied voice (your voice) in your head.

I don't know you, and you don't know me; the exchange takes place on your side, within your ego, and only informed by your perspectives and biases. (Likewise, for me!)

Because we've given every single person a voice and the promise that their opinion is just as important as everyone else's, despite their understanding or their qualifications, and it has made people collectively entitled and vitriolic.

Couple this with absolutely batshit insane current events for the last ~5 years and you have massive divide.

Then multiply that by the expansion of technology into every day lives, where everyone is connected and has an up-to-date, moment-by-moment window into literally thousands of other lives, and people get extremely detached from their own selves and their own beliefs. They stop thinking for themselves, almost entirely.

Not to mention things like Twitter, with quirks like "you have to fit very heavy conversations into cute little limited messages" so as to even further increase the pressure on public discourse.

All of this friction creates heat, so to speak, and people start realizing that outside their circles are people who are so foreign and different that they MUST be idiot enemies, and thus everyone begins to despise each other, categorizing people and using assumptions about their character against them, all formed from a few blurbs of random information either from context or a few textboxes on a social media profile.

It's just like when one is unable to effectively communicate, they often resort to violence. I firmly believe this is the same thing happening online - it's just a huge, crowded shouting match and since nothing ever happens despite how loud you're screaming, you have to resort to other means to get a rise out of someone else.

I'm not a particularly happy person and I really, _really_ dislike interacting with other people, so I can certainly understand why some of this happens. Life sucks for a lot of people, and being able to express that whilst having the buffer of a computer screen and ethernet cable between you and the other person is certainly a "great power, great responsibility" type of situation.

My point is: in both cases it's not "I'm miserable and unhappy", it's either a community-building thing, or it's a social status thing. If you're bullying someone in school, that's a power move to assert status. They're not unhappy, they're just trying to get ahead; under different circumstances, they'd just mug people to take their money. Now they bully them to get more status.

I said These studies almost never ask questions like ... That was very intentional.

"I'm being abused" is merely one example of someone having a crappy life. There are lots of ways a person's life can be crappy.

So your comment doesn't really disagree with my suggestion, though it sort of seems to. I'm only suggesting that bullies are probably miserable and taking their misery out on other people and that element isn't actually examined by most studies.

The study characterizes these cyberbullies as males who spend too much time online. I object to that.

That more or less smears men and people who spend a lot of time online without finding any real cause. I think it's a characterization that amounts to harmful disinformation.

It's not much different from racial profiling which people object to for the implication that "people of color are just immoral and inherently inclined to be criminal." (Among other reasons.)

I object to this study essentially pointing fingers at innocent characteristics as if they are causal without finding any meaningful causes. It doesn't even seem to look for meaningful causes.

I spend a lot of time online. That doesn't per se make me more inclined to bully people.

I do my damnedest to be a decent person in spite of having a very difficult life. I've been on the receiving end of bullying on a forum where it was mod policy to actively encourage members to pick on certain people and then the mods would act like the people being bullied were at fault for any drama that swirled around them when there was no means for those people to shut that crap down (I have reason to believe I continued to be stalked by some of these assholes even after they banned me).

I was homeless at the time and it was an extremely classist forum.

So there's no doubt all kinds of factors that contribute to such behavior. But this study doesn't seem to list a single thing that looks like a meaningful contributor.

The mods were a large part of the problem on the forum where I was harassed. That doesn't mean "Becoming a mod puts you at greater risk of becoming a bully."

Those people were just assholes who found themselves in an easily abusable position of power. Some of them were assholes who were very open about their childhood baggage, such as having an alcoholic father.

So personal baggage was a contributing factor. But we all can choose whether our baggage is a source of compassion for the suffering of others or a bullshit excuse to kick others while they are down.

These folks chose to kick me while I was down while bragging to the world about what amazingly woke and good people they are. And most people buy their BS about being good people and woke people and fail to see how they actively and intentionally crap on some people for no real reason.

We exchanged Christmas presents. They helped me sort out how to raise my challenging children. I always had someone to talk with any time of the day or night when I was having insomnia or whatever.

And I haven't had stuff like in recent years. I just thought it was me because I spent a few years homeless.

But then I run into comments like this one that posit people can either connect socially and be assholes or have a mind of their own and (implicitly) no friends and be grumpy.

I don't know what the hell is going on in the world, but maybe my internet life going to hell isn't just about my life going to hell. Maybe there's something else going on and it's sort of "coincidence" that my internet life went to hell at the same time that my actual life went to hell.

But in my experience life does not compel you to either have a mind of your own or have social connections. And having social connections doesn't compel you to go along with being part of a lynch mob or some shit.

That's never how my life worked. I used to have friends and a mind of my own. I still have a mind of my own, but I've mostly not had friends in a long time.

I kept thinking "I must be doing it wrong," but maybe not. Maybe the internet isn't what it used to be or something.

As a grumpy individualist, I'm not on Twitter, so it's pretty hard to bully me there. There's people there, why would I want to be there?

With time, most people simply move on, with the bullied party often being the notable exception.

I was molested and raped as a child. Most people had no idea.

I did attempt suicide at age 17 and I began making two grades per year below a C starting after I was raped at the age of twelve and I spent time in an insane asylum.

But I also was one of the top three students of my graduating high school class, had the highest SAT scores of my graduating high school class, won a National Merit Scholarship (to UGA, in fact) based on those scores, etc.

Most people are not talented at identifying indicators of abuse and people in abusive situations are often doing everything in their power to find some high road solution because they know they are at risk of being blamed and ending up in jail or some shit.

When I was institutionalized in my teens, I was initially presumed to be a badly behaved teenager. I distinctly remember having a conversation with a staff member who assumed I was just some asshole teenager and they markedly changed their tune when they found out I was a victim of being molested and raped and I was suicidal and that was why I was hospitalized, not because I was doing bad things to other people.

I kill you in Counter Strike and drop a spray. Were you just cyber bullied?

I kill you in COD and call you a newbie via voice. Were you just cyber bullied?

I’m on your team in Dota and tell you that you’re terrible and should uninstall the game. Were you just cyber bullied?

I tell our mutual friend group that you’re dating Jan the Man. Were you just cyber bullied?

I tell everyone at our school that you’re bad at Fortnite. Were you just cyber bullied?

I leak deep fake images of you getting fucked by a horse. Were you just cyber bullied?

The answer to all these questions might be yes in this study, especially if it’s based on self reporting.