At least when we were younger, bullies at school would be mean to your face.
These days, that iota of integrity is gone from bullying, thanks to Twitter and social media at large.
Recent stories, one in which a gay student was harassed over Twitter (by two UNC alumni no less), are a stark reminder of just how base bullying has become. They also remind us that even a place that takes pride in its progressive ideals can have vivid outliers.
“With great power, comes great responsibility,” goes the ?cliche. Maybe it’s said so much that no one pays attention.
But there are two distinct qualities about the age of the Internet that are a boon as much as a burden: scope and severity.
First is scope, and Twitter has mastered it. There are about 195 million registered users with about 95 million Tweets per day.
In theory, a Tweet can reach virtually everyone in the Twitter network. Almost certainly, it will reach a large fraction of the local network just by virtue of degrees of separation.
Second is severity. The disparity in digital versus analog behavior is so acute that it has it’s own psychological term: the “online disinhibition effect.”
Even in a public environment like Twitter, people act as if shielded from the impact of their sentiments. In a way, they are. They don’t have to ever look at the victim — empathy isn’t even a consideration.
