#onlinebehaviour

In a perfect world, everybody would be able to act as good digital citizens and connect and communicate in a positive manner online however, there are many people that use social media asa platform for online harassment. Online harassment can include a number of harmful activities online such as, calling people offensive names, embarrassing people, physically threatening people, sexually harassing people, impersonating people and spreading dangerous rumours about people (Lenhart et al in Marwick & Robyn Caplan 2018). Harassment often occurs online as people feel safe to say these things from their homes without the same consequences that they would likely face if they were to say the same thing to someone to public.

Different places online have different levels of tolerance for harassment. Different sites have different rules and regulations about what you can and cannot say and do (Milne 2020). For example many sites such as Facebook allow users to report other users for toxic and inappropriate behaviour. This will then lead to Facebook looking into the content or comment that has been reported and decide what action needs to be take. If it is a breach of their guidelines then they will likely remove it and potentially give the user a ban. On forum sites such as Reddit, individual forums usually have their own moderators that will constantly look through for inappropriate comments and ban them from posting and commenting again to prevent future toxic behaviour. In addition to this streaming sites such as Twitch also have moderators to ban people from commenting if they are harassing the streamer or other viewers. 

It is important for social media governance to take place online in order to minimise and prevent toxic behaviour online. This is because this kind of behaviour can have a very negative impact on the recipients mental wellbeing and there are no positives that come from this sort of behaviour online. 

References:

Lenhart, A., Michele L., Ybarra., Zickuhr, K., and Price-Feeney, M 2016. Online Harassment, Digital Abuse, and Cyberstalking in America. New York: Data & Society Research Institute.

Marwick, A & Caplan, R 2018, Drinking male tears: language, the manosphere, and networked harassment, Feminist Media Studies: Online Misogyny, Vol. 18(4), pp.543-559

Liau, A. K., Khoo, A., & Ang, P. H. (2005).

This was a really interesting article that looked at a very specific area of study, which included some potential predictors of why adolescents may be engaging in risky behavior, which included giving personal information to win a prize, and face-to-face meetings with those met online. These potential predictors included:

Age

Frequency of internet use

Frequency of chatting and gaming behavior

Parental rules

Type of personal information given out

Amount of inappropriate messages received

Whether inappropriate websites had been visited

Type of internet advice heard

This survey was conducted in Singapore though, but it consisted of results from 1,124 youths aged 12-17. Here is more important facts and interesting questions that I raised during reading the study.

“16% of adolescent internet users in Singapore have had a face-to-face meeting with someone first encountered online.” How many of those were negative encounters?

Parents’ main reason for wanting the internet was education

75% of parents were highly concerned about personal information being shared and sexual images being seen.

“19% of a US sample (...) stated that they had received an unwanted sexual solicitation in the past year.” And what about other countries?

“Girls, older adolescents, troubled youth, frequent internet users, chat room participants, and those who communicated online with strangers were found to be at greater risk...” Psychologically speaking, why them? And what does ‘troubled youth’ mean?

“25% of youth have had unwanted exposures to sexual material on the internet.”

Adolescents seem to be less concerned about risks compared to their parents. Why are they less concerned?

“52% of adolescent internet users expressed no worry at all about being contacted online.”

“... more likely parents to say that it is alright to give sensitive information to commercial websites in exchange for a free gift.”

“There is also disagreement between adolescents and parents on whether the internet leads youth to do dangerous of harmful things.”

“36% of youngsters recall tensions at home over youngsters’ release of information online.”

“81% of parents believe children could behave responsibly on the internet, only 46% of children themselves responded that they could be trusted to do so.” Why the discrepancy?

“... adolescent self-reports do not seem to corroborate parental reports of supervision.” Is this because they do not realize they are being monitored? Or so parents lie about their parenting to look better?

“... children and parents seldom talk about the positive or negative experiences on the internet.” So do kids hide what happens or do parents not ask?

“... while most of these youths followed safety basic rules (...) 10% of these youth told no one, and 23% were alone when they met their online friend.” Why? Did they want to keep the meeting secret or thought that their parents would not approve?

They asked about “... whether parents talk to them about what they do on the internet, and whether they would tell their parents about receiving pornographic junkmail.” They didn’t ask about whether parents had been told in the past.

“... whether they had given out personal information (...) to win a prize in a contest.” This is very specific, as they may have given out riskily in a different situation.

“... whether they have met someone on the internet who asked for personal information...” Why not ask whether they had given it?

“... been sent pornography on the internet from someone they have met only on the internet...” What about from people they know?

When talking about visiting inappropriate websites, they say visited accidentally or purposely. But there should be a distinguished boundary between the two.

“... whether they have heard safety advice...” From where? Did they listen to it?

“16% of internet users reported having met someone in real life that they first encountered online.”

“Fifteen adolescents had the experience of meeting someone who introduced himself/herself as a child on the internet but turned out to be an adults.”

“Age was a significant predictor of the risk behavior but gender was not...” It also seems that older adolescents were at more risk. Why? Did they believe they were safer? Or smarter?

“...frequency of use of the internet was a significant predictor...” Is this exponential? As in more exposure will always equal more risk? “...adolescents who use the internet at least once a day were more likely to have had a face-to-face meeting with someone first encountered online...” “...frequency of chatting and gaming were still significant predictors.”

“High internet use was also associated with a greater likelihood of having a close or romantic online relationship with someone encountered online, and there were a disproportionate number of troubled youth (...) who have had such relationships.” Why? Are they more comfortable online? I would describe troubled as differently.

“Parents’ educational background and whether parents lived together were not significant predictors of the risky behavior.”

While “... parental supervision techniques such as sitting with or checking in on the adolescent while they were online, using filters, and checking sites visited were not related to the risk...”, “Internet rules relating specifically to not having face-to-face meetings, and not meeting strangers online lowered the risk of such a meeting.” So general rules don’t help as much as specific rules for only this risk. What about others?

“...parental supervision techniques do not seem to be effective in lowering the risk involved with adolescent internet use.” Why? Is it because kids don’t listen to parents OR does watching not help as much as convos?

“... child disclosure of information provided a better explanation than tracking and surveillance of why parental knowledge is linked to adolescents’ level of adjustment.” What is meant by adjustment?

“... adolescents who tell parents that they have received pornographic junk mail are marginally less likely to have had a face-to-face meeting with someone encountered online.”

“...perhaps parents should encourage open communication with their children regarding their internet use, and use participate decision making to set specific rules about the limits of their internet behavior.” fantastic suggestion!

“...adolescents who had visited pornographic websites, sites with violent images, and hate sites were more likely to have had a face-to-face meeting with someone encountered online.” Is this a personality trait coming out?

“...as parents attempt to set norms in terms of information disclosure practices. Children, in turn, may develop their own rules of self-disclosure.” Why? Rebellious? See the world and internet differently?

“...high levels of self-disclosure in online relationships.” But giving your name to win a contest is different to sharing in an online relationship.

“...adolescents who gave out (personal information) were more likely to have had face-to-face meetings.” Why are they giving this information out?

“Having met someone who asked for personal information, and received inappropriate messages like unwanted sexual comments and pornographic junk messages were also significant predictors.”

“Hence, information flow into and out of the home is associated with greater risk for adolescents on the internet.”

“It is possible that adolescents engagement in risky behaviors such as face-to-face meetings leads to great frequency of internet use.”

“...the survey consists of many single-item constructs...” Not reliable!