Working Hypothesis 1:

Social media should be put to an end

Working Hypothesis 2:

Social media should not be accessible to internet abusers.

Working Hypothesis 3:

If the identities of cyberbullies are revealed their hate will stop

Sources + Summaries:

1. Social Media and Adolescent Health https://www.proquest.com/openview/4627c2c8d162d9506ab38e13fa8de0b3/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=47659

Social media is a form of communication and social interaction for people. A study that included 2,000 teens showed that 92% of teens are going online everyday. The study also showed that over 70% of adolescents are on social media apps, such as Instagram and Snapchat, several times a day. Don’t be fooled though adults, including parents, are on social media as well. Although, social media use among adults is mostly to stay current and connected with close friends. Teens are partaking in various online activities such as texting, video chatting, gaming, and creating/watching content. Research shows that social media has both advantages and disadvantages in an adolescent’s life. Some benefits include self-esteem enhancement, increased opportunities, and access to information. Social media can also be used as an outlet to share and collaborate on ideas. On the other hand, the disadvantages have shown to outweigh the advantages. Some risks include cyberbullying, sexting, privacy concerns, and educational/mental health consequences. Social media usage has been linked to depression due to addictive use and cyberbullying. Cyberbullying can be classified as an electronic form of inflicting harm to others. Social media can also be used to spread information and content quickly. Despite being a place to express creativity, it can also be a space for predators. ^brief summary; more to be added

2. Problematic social media use https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S027795361730223X

Depression is a leading illness in the world.

“44% of U.S. young adult sample reported problematic social media use (PSMU).”

“Problematic social media use is strongly and independently associated with depressive symptoms.”

“Frequency of social media use may be a distinct behavioral component of problematic social media use.”

3. Detection of Cyberbullying in Social Media https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3308558.3313462

Cyberbullying can be considered a form of abusive online behavior, with the intent to harm/bully a victim. This can be done with repetitive aggressive messages. “Cyberbullying have led to the development of numerous automated, data-driven approaches, with emphasis on classification accuracy. Existing work has focused on harassment (i.e., using profanity to classify toxic comments independently) as an indicator of cyberbullying.” For example, CONcISE is used for timely and accurate cyberbullying detection on Instagram media sessions. It raises an alert only after a certain number of detections have been made. Substantial experiments on a real-world Instagram datasets with 4 million users and 10 million comments have demonstrated the effectiveness.

4. Social Media Usage https://www.secretintelligenceservice.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/PI_2015-10-08_Social-Networking-Usage-2005-2015_FINAL.pdf

Research shows that the demographic of social media users have changed over the decades. Data shows two-thirds of American adults use social networking sites. It is well known that young adults, ages 18-29, are the most likely to use social media. In fact, 90% still do. However, usage among 65 and older has more than tripled. To add on, women and men tend to use social media at similar rates. Since 2015, 68% of all women use social media, compared to the 62% of all men. Social media also had socio-economic differences. People with higher education levels and household income were more likely to use social media. However, that has also changed with more than half (56%) of those living in the low income households now using social media. Finally, there were also community differences among social media users. Those who lived in rural areas were less likely than those in suburban and urban communities to use social media. Now more than half of rural residents now use social media. Note : Data ranged from 2005 – 2015

5. New Breed of Bullies Torment Their Peers on the Internet http://www.mskennedysclass.com/New_Breed_of_Bullies.pdf

Bullying has always been a threat/problem. In schools, you’ve seen the playground and lunchtime intimidators. Now, in the new world of advance technology a new space for bullies has been created. In fact, bullying has been made easier than ever. People can remain anonymous while their hate can spread like wildfire. E-mail messages, web sites, social media apps, and etc have become vehicles to threaten, tease, and humiliate other kids. Researchers have found that one in four children there have been bullied or threatened via computer or telephone. “We have seen several cases of cyberbullying at our middle school,” said Mary Culin, a drug-prevention and safety coordinator. John Carr, the associate director of the organization’s Children and Technology United also said, “Children as young as 11 are being faced with taunts or threats from an often-anonymous source. They’re either not telling anyone and suffering in silence, or are confiding in people who themselves don’t know how to deal with it effectively.”

Other Topics:

• Benefits of social media usage
• Social media use among adolescents/children v.s adults
• Origin of social media

Previous State:

I feel as though my hypothesis is still developing. I’m not confident in my work but I think I made some progress by starting the White Paper. Sometimes I still get frustrated with myself because I don’t know what direction I’m heading in. I began this assignment not even knowing where to start. In fact, I had trouble finding sources, which shouldn’t be the hard part. However, as I finished up my first draft of the White Paper I felt a little better. I think I’m working at a slow pace because I want to fully understand what it is I’m doing. Alas, at the end of the day I know there is a limited amount of time to get everything done. So I’m going to keep working and hope to get into the groove of it. I felt like I was failing in the beginning but then remembered I’m just a step closer to succeeding, at least I hope I am. All in all, this White Paper and research paper has a long way to go.