The whole point of the term “Mind Change”—as opposed to, say, the potential, sci-fi-sounding term “brain change”—is that it touches on many aspects of how we as individuals think, feel, and interact with one another the longer we live in this unprecedented digital environment. In order to gain the bigger picture, it’s important to think not just about the neuroscience underpinning these transformations but also about the psychology, social science, and even philosophy behind them. From the seventeenth century onward, great thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau promoted the idea of the social contract, which holds that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their individual freedoms or rights for their own ultimate protection and well-being. So let’s look now at what impact social networking sites have on the accepted moral values of a society.
Megan Meier was a thirteen-year-old living in Missouri when, in 2006, she started communicating online with a boy named Josh Evans.1 At first Josh seemed caring, but then became increasingly critical and insulting; he told Megan that she was such a bad person she should kill herself. In fact, “Josh” was the mother of an ex-friend of Megan’s. This story not only demonstrates how easy it is to adopt a completely different persona but, much more significant, also illustrates the effects that such bullying can have: Megan did as she was told and hanged herself. Alarmingly, this type of tragic story is becoming increasingly common.
The vulnerability of teenagers to sanitized yet less rich, less multidimensional forms of communication, their age-related propensity to take risks, the twenty-four-hour availability of social networking, and the unedited and unrealistic snapshot social networking sites present of what everyone else is up to are all factors that might prove to be a heady cocktail for some individuals, who could then behave in dysfunctional ways that have eventual implications for society as a whole. In 2012 a survey in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia showed a stark increase in the number of suicides resulting from cyberbullying, with 56 percent of cases occurring in the previous seven years and 44 percent of cases in the previous fifteen months.2
Cyberbullying is when someone uses the Internet, a mobile phone, or another device to threaten, harass, tease, or embarrass another person. Various studies report that 20 to 40 percent of young people have been victims of cyberbullying.3 In a survey of U.S. teenagers in 2011, 33 percent of girls age twelve or thirteen who use social networking sites said that peers’ interactions on social networking sites are “mostly unkind,” and 20 percent of girls age fourteen to seventeen reported the same thing.4 Often these bullies will set up a website or form a group on Facebook and get others to join in and make comments about another person. But it isn’t fair to blame the Internet for this. Bullying has long cast its dark shadow over the playground and workplace, and it seems deeply ingrained in our psyche.
“Perhaps it is only human nature to inflict suffering on anything that will endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine humility, or indifference, or sheer helplessness.” This suggestion came from Honoré de Balzac in his 1835 novel Le Père Goriot.5 It’s even been hazarded that bullying has evolutionary value as a stabilizing factor in the shifting struggles for hierarchical status in primate colonies.6 But while bullies have been a blemish on society ever since Flashman, for example, strutted his stuff in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, the vehicle for them to express their nasty predispositions has changed. Now that the Internet and social networking have removed most constraints on accountability, it is possible that this technology could result in behaviors and situations that previously wouldn’t have been possible.
Some will argue that the effects of the digital culture on cyberbullying is a non-issue, because the medium is irrelevant. For example, Dan Olweus, who runs a bullying prevention program at Clemson University, found in a large sample of younger teens that there was a high degree of overlap between those who bully in traditional ways and those who engage in cyberbullying. However, 12 percent of new victims or bullies in the U.S. sample were cyberbullying only, and had not been victims or bullies in the traditional way. Olweus argues this is a “very small percentage,” and he goes on to say,
These results suggest that the new electronic media have actually created few “new” victims and bullies. To be cyberbullied or to cyberbully other students seems to a large extent to be part of a general pattern of bullying, where use of the electronic media is only one possible form and, in addition, a form with a quite low prevalence.7
However, the 12 percent of young teenagers who participate in bullying or are victims of it is hardly a “very small percentage.” Moreover, we need to ask not only whether the Internet encourages this behavior but also, and more important, whether cyberbullying can affect a victim more seriously than traditional bullying. After all, the scale of the audience that can witness the bullying is now much greater than would have been the case with traditional bullying, and evidence of it can exist permanently on the Internet. A recent study found that both cyberbullies and their victims were significantly more likely to internalize problems, as evidenced by depressive symptoms and suicidal behavior, compared to those involved in traditional bullying. So the medium can affect both victim and bully much more seriously.8
Experts have argued that the Internet creates a unique world that adds extra “disengagement” from immoral actions.9 The process of moral disengagement describes how an individual is able to deactivate internal moral controls that otherwise inhibit his or her behavior.10 This disengagement may be a prerequisite for cyberbullying: visual cues such as the victim’s distress are absent, while the distance created by a screen suppresses any feelings of guilt and shame. Furthermore, because young people associate the use of technology with online games, chatting with friends, and exchanging photos, cyberbullying is often closely connected with other means of entertainment.11 This finding is in line with research showing that cyberbullies have less remorse, which may be due in part to the lack of direct contact between the bully and the victim. Two investigators, Sonja Perren and Eveline Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger at the University of Zurich, found no relationship between moral disengagement and cyberbullying.12 This suggests that the screen may dehumanize victims to such an extent that bullies do not even need to suppress any moral values, therefore they don’t need to first disengage, to harm others online.
Diffusion and dilution of responsibility are other drivers of cyberbullying behavior.13 Just as bullying in the presence of a gang permits the responsibility for the act to be diluted, cyberbullying often takes place within a virtual crowd. The Internet offers the anonymity of a mob, and thus the opportunity to behave in a more shameful way than one would in person. Dr. Graham Barnfield, a media researcher and lecturer at the University of East London, told the British TV program Tonight with Trevor McDonald that “happy slapping”—when bullies film bullying on their phones and upload it to the Internet—can be seen by the “slappers” as a shortcut to “fame and notoriety.” This is an example of a completely new kind of mentality made possible only by the Internet.
There’s another phenomenon that, like bullying, seems also to bring out the worst in human nature and, like happy slapping, could only really happen on the Internet. Trolling is prevalent in chat rooms, Twitter streams, and blogs. The concept of “trolling” generally describes someone who adopts an offensive or controversial stance in order to annoy others or to provoke an emotional response.14 Mature and seasoned Internet users may take trolls’ comments with the appropriate pinch of salt, especially if they are more witty than spiteful, but more sensitive users or impressionable younger victims may take offense or have their self-esteem and confidence demolished.
It could be, of course, that a certain unpleasant type of person naturally enjoys causing offense no matter what and might have found in the Internet merely another outlet. But it is hard to imagine how trolls might truly express themselves face-to-face with their victim in the real world. For example, in one terrible case Internet trolls contacted a bereaved mother, pretending to be her dead young daughter getting in touch from hell.15 Extreme though this example may be, it illustrates how an environment of widespread global access, diminished responsibility, and anonymity, combined with a lack of experience of interpersonal relationships, have pushed trolling to new heights, or more accurately lows.
John Newton, head of a school in Devon, wrote of his concerns in a national British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, suggesting that social networking websites pose a serious threat because they blur the lines between gossip and fact before schoolchildren learn to appreciate the difference.16 Newton has warned that social networking sites are “a far more powerful weapon in the hands of our children than we appreciate.” Of Facebook in particular he asks:
Is it a meaningful social hive generating goodwill and reuniting old friends, or is it a gossips’ paradise infesting the world with innuendo, half truth and insult? If they flippantly post comments on-line, young people especially may not realize the irreversible consequences to someone’s reputation.… They have not necessarily understood what constitutes gossip, nor appreciate the Exocet quality of a hurtful word; half-formed opinion is all that counts.
This picture of a more malicious and less moral society driven by social networking sites may not hold for all societies because of differences in the way cultures use such sites. One investigation compared social networking site use in a collectivistic culture, China, and in an individualistic one, the United States.17 More than four hundred college student participants were recruited from a southwestern university in China, and a comparable number from a midwestern university in the United States. The participants completed a survey about their use of social networking, including time spent on it, its importance to them, and their motives for using it. There were clear cultural differences. U.S. users spent more time on social networking sites, considered them to be more important, and had more virtual friends than their Chinese counterparts did. These findings suggest that in collectivistic cultures the importance of family and friends may be partly responsible for Chinese users’ weaker ties to social networking. In contrast, individualistic cultures may offer less support for close and enduring friendships, resulting in greater use of Facebook and the like. Given the evidence so far that social networking promotes an individualistic focus, it’s surely unsurprising that the Western world seems to use social networking in ways not paralleled in Eastern cultures.
Despite accumulating evidence of the dark side of social networking,18 the potential to spread information at breakneck speed in countries where information may be repressed or controlled is a vital tool. Facebook and Twitter use among activists played a key role in the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011.19 Moreover, social networking may be an effective means of raising global consciousness among users—for example, to encourage young people in the United States to vote and to impart awareness of humanitarian plights. In turn, large sums of money can and have been raised by crowdfunding, the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money via the Internet to support efforts initiated by others in support of a wide variety of activities, from disaster relief to start-up companies.
What effect is this “clicktivism” having? For example, did liking or sharing the Kony 2012 video to stop war criminal Joseph Kony change a user for the better? The rate at which individuals participated in the Cover the Night activism proposed by Kony 2012 was significantly lower than would have been predicted, given the immense popularity of the video. An outstanding issue in clicktivism is how to translate what’s on the screen into real-world actions.20 Social networking sites can provide us with large quantities of information about world issues, and clicktivism requires next to no effort while making users feel good. Others have termed this kind of passive, easy concern “slacktivism.” Indeed, given the research we’ve discussed showing that the screen can sanitize interpersonal communication and dehumanize individuals, viewing humanitarian crises through a social networking site may have less impact than if a user was exposed to the situation offline. Clicktivism could well reduce the incentive to make a credible impact on humanitarian issues, because a user feels that liking and sharing a cause has been enough.
Drawing on interviews with teens and young adults, one study explored the extent to which young people’s approach to online life included moral or ethical considerations.21 The data revealed that individualistic thinking was the primary focus when making decisions online; community-focused thinking was least prevalent. Moreover, nearly all individuals in the study could identify at least one instance in which they had trivialized the moral elements of online activities, indicating that individuals have a “greater tolerance for unethical conduct online.” Perhaps we are indeed in danger of forgetting John Donne’s famous lines:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.22
Facebook, Twitter, and similar sites deliver the promise of being constantly connected, wanted, admired, even loved. They have brought into our society interpretations of identity and relationships that challenge current values and morality, in a way that would have been inconceivable even just a decade ago.