Social media: No way back

THE social world of young people in Ireland is dominated by their access to the new media available.

This is a fact and there is no turning back from this.

We estimate at St Patrick’s University Hospital that 80% of the young people who attend our service have experienced cyber-bullying at some stage. Nearly 100% of them use social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The impact of bullying in young people is huge in the context of social media whereas previously bullying might have been a local event confined to a small number of people in the school yard, now it is amplified amongst hundreds and possibly thousands of so-called media friends.

For many young people there is no escape. Recent tragic losses in the context of cyber-bullying highlight the need for increased awareness and a strategy to address this new problem.

Young people are enormously technol-ogically savvy but are unaware of their own social naivety, a combination that puts them at a great disadvantage.

Some of the strategies used to by bullies on social media sites include taunting strategies where young people simply mock and tease each other over the network.

More aggressive threats are sometimes used when individuals would be targeted and made to feel afraid amongst their peers.

More rarely, there are techniques involving impersonation on the web where young people will adopt or alter someone’s Facebook page to portray the person in a poor light. This is a phenomenon known as Facebook raping, or fraping as it is more commonly known.

Young people share media communication minute-to-minute and hour-to-hour. They invite each other to comment on every bit of news, gossip or mutual interest.

When we ask our young people why they haven’t reported bullying to their parents or guardians, they tell us they fear their parents will remove access to the internet from them. They fear being even more isolated and cut off.

Nonetheless, the naivety young people have is striking. They are unaware of the risks they enter into in surrendering their privacy. What is more, they are unable to anticipate the distress they will feel when they are humiliated amongst their peers.

Imagine how it would be to be a young person who is the object of a voting poll amongst peers to determine who is the ugliest amongst your classmates. You go on to the website and discover that 85% of your friends think you are the ugliest.

How can you cope as a young person forming your own identity with that kind of onslaught? Even the most robust young person is bound to be distressed.

Unfortunately many who are vulnerable can become quite ill. We found in our service at Willow Grove at St Patrick’s University Hospital that nearly 80% of our service users in this age group have experienced some form of cyber-bullying in the weeks and months leading up to their presentation.

So what can be done? Clearly there is no way back from social media. The social media that exist have tremendous benefits and offer huge insights and education opportunities which we must welcome.

However, the impact of social media in a negative way cannot be denied and as a culture and as educationalists we need to prepare our young people for this experience.

At St Patrick’s University Hospital, we are aware of the need to collect better data about this phenomenon. We are planning to conduct research into the online activity of our young people. We hope to develop specific programmes which include education and awareness for young people about internet safety.

The challenge is to make up this gap between the technologically savvy and the socially naive young people. To do this, we will need to involve parents, clinicians and educators in a combined effort.

We need to prepare our young people for a future in which the challenge may include the total loss of privacy which we are now experiencing. Imagine a world maybe 20 years from now where a presidential debate occurs and none of the candidates can speak about their past without exposure of their youth on Facebook revealing an altogether different behaviour, one which they now would be very distressed to see.

It is something that we need to be aware of, to do this we have to address our media culture and rapidly improve our education around this, perhaps there is an opportunity to provide a platform and a support for young people in this environment rather than run away from it.

Perhaps as parents and educators, clinicians and opinion formers, we can recognise that technology is moving faster than we are.

* Professor Jim Lucey is medical director, of St Patrick’s University Hospital, Dublin