Twitter Beats Facebook as Most Common Medium for Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying, the act of continuously harassing or humiliating someone through the internet or mobile phones, is a growing trend that can have severe psychological consequences on the victim. 

Emily Groh, a University of Maryland journalism student and researcher, found that the prevalence of social media in society plays a crucial role in this phenomenon.

Groh and her fellow classmate, Gloria Johnston, researched this topic, as well as the aspects of social media appeal to younger audiences.  The team analyzing randomly selected October 2011 cyberbullying articles from Google and digitally distributing a survey about social networks to participants between 18 and 26 years old.

Twitter and Facebook were the most common methods through which cyberbullying took place, although it also occurred through instant messangers. The sites were mentioned in about 43% of the articles and about 36% of the articles, respectively.

“Social networks have become such an integrated part of our youth's lives. However, this phenomenon is aiding people to indirectly kill others,” Groh said, referring to the high profile suicides of young adults such as Tyler Clementi, who were tortured by cyberbullying.

Clementi, a then-college freshman at Rutgers, was harassed and embarrassed by his roommate through the Internet because he was gay.  In the study, 50% of the victims were bullied due to their sexual orientation, out of the articles that mentioned a primary reason for the cyberbullying.

Groh was surprised to find that (72%) of the victims were males because of the stereotypes that females are often viciously mean to other females.  Only one of the articles mentioned that the bully was a stranger who did not personally know the victim.

A vast majority (85.7%) of the bullies in the stories were classmates of the victims and more than half  (56.2%) the victims were high school students, though younger individuals were mentioned.

Groh interpreted this skew to be based on the fact that many high school students struggle with solidifying their identities, so they might be more inclined than middle and elementary school adolescents to “ put their anger out on others.”

Though Twitter was the most prevalent medium for cyberbullying, the survey showed that Facebook was the most popular social network for young adults.

Out of 128 participants, 126 (97.7%) reported having a Facebook account and 71 (56.3%) reported checking this website first when they logged onto their computer. Most (79.7%) indicated that they used the social media site primarily as a way to keep in contact with friends.

However, this research was designed to encourage individuals to expand their understanding of social media uses in our culture and to educate individuals about the possible consequences surrounding these uses of the sites.

“I want to show people that it is not always just about catching up with friends,” said Groh. “[Cyberbullying] is occurring throughout all age groups. It is not something to be taken lightly and parents, especially, need to make sure they know what is going on in their children's lives and online lives.”

Longitudinal study finds that early pot smoking can lead to non-violent adult criminal activity

The increasing public perception that marijuana’s harmfulness is minimal is partially based on legalization efforts and its medicinal availability in some states, explained Dr. Kerry M. Green, community health specialist. 

“But what do we really know the effects of marijuana? A lot of it is based on personal experience,” said Green, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland’s Department of Behavioral and Community Health and long-time researcher of substance use and prevention. 

Results of a 36-year-long observational study of urban African-Americans that Green worked on suggest that perpetual adolescent pot smokers are at a higher risk than non-users or light-users for non-violent criminal involvement later in life. 


 

In other words, while researchers did not connect smoking pot 20 or more times as a teen to violence or violent adult crimes, it was linked to drug-related crimes and property crimes. Green, who is concerned with health disparities and disadvantaged populations, is primarily interested in using this research as a grounds for prevention.

"If we could get those kids to not use marijuana  heavily- to delay their use or eliminate their use- we should be able to lower their risk of getting arrested later for non-violent crimes," she said.

The study consisted of four periods in 1966, 1976, 1992, and 2002, in which data was collected from participants. Roughly 700 subjects completed all four stages. Only this information was used to calculate results. 

First, teachers and mothers of African-American first graders in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago were asked about the children’s personalities and behaviors. When the subjects were 16, they self-reported their drug and alcohol use patterns. Finally, they were asked about the adult crimes they had committed by ages 32 and 42, and criminal records were collected.  

Researchers isolated the teenage pot use and adult crime variables using an advanced statistical method. In other words, they accounted for other observable factors, such as poverty and dropping out of high school, which also could have lead to criminal involvement. 

When considering only the drug as the cause of the crimes, they found a statistically significant relationship between extensive teenage marijuana smoking and non-violent crimes committed in adulthood.

Although the common warning “correlation does not imply causation,” may come to mind for non-experimental data, this method actually does measure causation. It eliminated the most prominent factors that might have contributed to criminal involvement instead of marijuana use. These are called confounding variables. 

 “It’s a very advanced technique, and the whole reason we use it because we can’t infer causation from this observation data,” said Green. “Usually if we want to know if x causes y, we do an experiment, but with something like drug use, we can’t make kids do marijuana and see what happens.”

Residents of Woodlawn, a then-all-African American neighborhood on the south side of a segregated Chicago, were chosen as the population in 1966 because of the area’s notoriously high poverty and unemployment rates.  Another factor was that African-Americans of various socio-economic statuses lived there, so there was opportunity for comparing such factors. 

But to what extent can these findings be generalized? Green believes that it can be generalized to at least other urban African-American populations, but admits uncertainty.

“For marijuana, we don’t think there is any difference in drug using behaviors in different cities, although we would have to test it in other cities to confirm this,” she said.

And as with any scientific study, there are limitations to consider. 

“Even though we have evidence consistent with a causal interpretation, it’s not a definitive study saying that marijuana causes crime,” said Green. “The evidence suggests that marijuana does not increase your risk of violent crime, nor does it cause violence. But it does seem to increase your risk of property and drug crimes.”  

Introduction

I am a senior at the University of Maryland, double majoring in journalism and psychology. I consider myself a writer (journalistic and creative) and approach journalism as a story-telling art form.  My main journalistic interests are in feature stories, human interest pieces, and articles related to psychology and health research. Other personally eye-catching news stories usually relate to art, theater and nature.

As a journalism student double majoring in psychology, I am naturally inclined to study and analyze human behavior. Understanding Online News Audiences will give me the chance to learn more about the motivations and behaviors of people using the internet for news retrieval.

One of my major goals for the course is to discover the different effects of reporting qualitative and quantitative research to news audiences. I'd like to learn about the pros and cons of each type of research. For example, is it helpful to present qualitative research on an extremely dense topic to make it more approachable? Or does this actual hinder the detail level and accuracy of the article?

Another major goal is to learn how to successfully interpret, synthesize and present tremendous amounts of data to the public concisely and accurately. I'd also like to delve into the differences between type of research institutes, such as universities, government organizations and NGOs. What should journalists keep in mind when using these different sources?

I'd also like to learn more about the growing popularity of Twitter as a source for news for college students and how people engage with instant news updates via their smart phones. Another topic of interest is which news audiences prefer personalized news. Do most college students prefer personalized news? Are adults over 50 less likely to be interested in personalized news?

I look forward to addressing these questions and more.