The Takeaway
Relationships can be more than just romantic. We have relationships with each and every person we interact with on a routine basis, friendships, companionships, and acquaintanceships. Each of these relationships can and, in today's age, do have aspects of them that are maintained over social media. Because of this each individual can potentially expose themselves to various negative consequences of being closely involved with others through various platforms. Social media connects all of our relationships in one place and thusly can be a platform through which abuse and violence can be distributed to the unfortunate victims.
While social media and the internet are not inherently bad, it is important to note the possible negative affects associated with them which are namely, sexual coercion, cyber bullying, solicitation, stalking, and exposure to pornographic material. These factors affect both genders and are most prevalent in adolescents who are in a vulnerable developmental state and who are willing to actively avoid discussing these things with guardians. The relationships formed over the internet and social media can have both positive and negative affects and it is crucial to the mental and physical health of individuals that these relationships and maintained in a healthy and appropriate manner. |
The Reasearch
According to Drouin et al. (2015), there has be a wide increase in the usage of social media to “form and maintain interpersonal relationships”. This phenomenon has led to two major concerns among the scientific and nonscientific communities alike about the possible negative impact of this. The first of these is sexting which “refers to the ‘sending of sexually explicit messages or images by cell phone” (Drouin et al. 2015). The second of these is Cyber abuse which is defined as encompassing a range of online activities from bullying to pornography (Mishna et al. 2009). For the first set of research, Drouin et al. (2015) hypothesized several things. The first of these was that some young adults would report sexual coercion, women would report more than men, and that subtle forms would be more common than violent forms. Secondly, they hypothesized that there would be a strong correlation between sexual/sexting coercion and intimate partner violence. Thirdly, that these factors would be related to trauma symptoms (Drouin et al. 2015). The findings show that a majority of participants have engaged in some form of sexting, whether through text or photo, and that women reported higher incidents of “unwanted but consensual sexting.” It is important to note that hypothesis one predicted a difference in gender based on experiencing it more often which was not the case, the differences among gender were minimal. The gender difference lies between being coerced to sext and then actually sending the unwanted sext, where women were much more likely to engage in this behavior (Drouin et al. 2015). Among all participants, the researchers found that feeling obligated or persistence were the leading causes for people to engage in unwanted sexting, where women were far more likely to report this than men. For the second and third hypotheses, it was significant across all measures that higher rates of sexual and sexting coercion lead to higher rates of intimate partner violence. However, both genders experienced a stronger relationship between coercion and negative health symptoms than between partner aggression and negative health symptoms (Drouin et al. 2015). The data showed that sexting is both clearly present and clearly associated with negative effects. The second set of research as done by Mishna et al. (2009) focused on cyber abuse and the prevalence of awareness as well as some of the negative effects. The researchers determined that adolescents form relationships on the internet and through social media even when made aware of the possibly negative outcomes. Four major themes of online abusive situations presented themselves and the researchers outlined them as bullying, stalking, solicitation, and exposure to online pornography (Mishna et al. 2009). The first of these, bullying, is a more common issue for children and young adults both on and offline but Mishna et al. (2009) “cyber bullying by both real-life acquaintances and friends and those with whom relationships had developed online” was frequent and common. The second of these, stalking, was most common and girls and become significant as early as age 11. The research found that stalking "ranged from unwanted, “annoying” e-mails to death threats that were considered credible and terrifying" (Mishna et al. 2009). The third of these, solicitation, is most common among preadolescents and teenagers those of whom are female or bisexual/gay men. The researchers found that “the men used tactics to engage them in online sexual encounters, such as online rewards or even higher grades for failing students” (Mishna et al. 2009). Finally, the fourth, exposure to pornography, was prevalent in both genders and could be seen at as early as age twelve. The material was accessed for both gratification and curiosity. While these four may seem unrelated, they do share common denominators. The two main similarities are that they are associated with online relationships formed by the individual even with knowledge of the risks associated with forming these relations and that the children and adolescents were unlikely to share their negative experiences with their parents and even actively evaded detection of these interactions (Mishna et al. 2009). Both sets of research outline negatives of forming or engaging in relationships over the internet and have obvious ties between these affects and the types of interactions that common social media sites provoke.
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Kate Arthur shares her expert opinion on cyberbullying via social media.