<story><title>Social media addiction linked to cyberbullying</title><url>https://news.uga.edu/social-media-addiction-linked-to-cyberbullying/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DoreenMichele</author><text>What I&amp;#x27;m not seeing is what is going on in the lives of these people that fosters such negative behavior. These studies almost never ask questions like &amp;quot;Are you being abused by your parents?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Have you been molested?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;There is this presumption that they engage in malicious behavior simply because they think they can get away with it, basically. It&amp;#x27;s an &amp;quot;idle hands are the devil&amp;#x27;s workshop&amp;quot; theory and generally lacks substance.&lt;p&gt;Sure, people do all kinds of stupid stuff when bored and when they have time on their hands, but why are these young adolescents online all the time? Does this mean they have a terrible home life and no one is paying attention to them?&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t really like proxies like &amp;quot;Spends a lot of time online.&amp;quot; I spend a lot of time online. I don&amp;#x27;t bully people.&lt;p&gt;For me, the internet is a means to have a life when that wouldn&amp;#x27;t otherwise be possible. I earn income online. I have hobbies online. Etc.&lt;p&gt;I really dislike the subtext that &amp;quot;spending time online is bad and more time spent online is worse.&amp;quot; I would guess it is something more like &amp;quot;Spending time online to try to escape your shitty life in an abusive household means you take your baggage out on internet strangers because that seems safer and more do-able than resolving your thorny problems.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>colloq</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s only adolescents. You can see rich Google employees bullying poorer developers on Twitter in the name of social justice. Some of the bullies must be at least 50 years old.&lt;p&gt;Social media and Twitter are bad because you can form virtual tribes and yield to age-old instincts.&lt;p&gt;The more individualistic people are, the less they join those tribes.  Individualists tend to be grumpy though, for which they are bullied by the perfect Twitter moralists.</text></comment>
<story><title>Social media addiction linked to cyberbullying</title><url>https://news.uga.edu/social-media-addiction-linked-to-cyberbullying/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DoreenMichele</author><text>What I&amp;#x27;m not seeing is what is going on in the lives of these people that fosters such negative behavior. These studies almost never ask questions like &amp;quot;Are you being abused by your parents?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Have you been molested?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;There is this presumption that they engage in malicious behavior simply because they think they can get away with it, basically. It&amp;#x27;s an &amp;quot;idle hands are the devil&amp;#x27;s workshop&amp;quot; theory and generally lacks substance.&lt;p&gt;Sure, people do all kinds of stupid stuff when bored and when they have time on their hands, but why are these young adolescents online all the time? Does this mean they have a terrible home life and no one is paying attention to them?&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t really like proxies like &amp;quot;Spends a lot of time online.&amp;quot; I spend a lot of time online. I don&amp;#x27;t bully people.&lt;p&gt;For me, the internet is a means to have a life when that wouldn&amp;#x27;t otherwise be possible. I earn income online. I have hobbies online. Etc.&lt;p&gt;I really dislike the subtext that &amp;quot;spending time online is bad and more time spent online is worse.&amp;quot; I would guess it is something more like &amp;quot;Spending time online to try to escape your shitty life in an abusive household means you take your baggage out on internet strangers because that seems safer and more do-able than resolving your thorny problems.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Wohlf</author><text>I would bet on a large scale it&amp;#x27;s not people who are being abused, just people who are miserable and unhappy with their lives for whatever reason.</text></comment>