A researcher at Microsoft, danah boyd, has a nice blog post this week about bullying. She makes a point of noting that the bullying we’ve seen recently in online social networks is not reflective of a technology problem but instead a larger social one. Boyd introduces her post this way:
The cultural logic underpinning bullying is far more complex than most adults realize. And technology is not radically changing what’s happening; it’s simply making what’s happening far more visible. If we want to combat bullying, we need to start by understanding the underlying dynamics. And we need to approach interventions with an evaluation-based mindset. We won’t know how to stop bullying and no amount of legislation requiring education is going to do squat until we actually find intervention mechanisms that work. And that starts with understanding what’s happening.
For those of you doing research questions relating to cyberbullying or gossip,you might find this post especially interesting.
