In the last week of
class, presentations about different social media tools were conducted from
different groups. Through these presentation, it is not difficult to understand
the revolutionary change the Internet social media brought to human beings’
ways of life, custom, and values. Through elaborating how different social
media tools influence the social aspects, marketing uses, educational uses, and
recreational uses, students have been exposed to all the possibility social
media can do and how much they can modify the lives of human beings.
The second part of this
class focused on the negative aspect of social media. Among all these negative
activities, trolling and cyber bullying are probably the most serious and
infamous ones. According to the professor, trolling can be defined as “random
negative commands” expressed on people’s posts. These mean and hurtful words
are meant to mentally hurt and offend the posters. People’s reactions toward trolling
can be ranged from anger to depression, but there are quite a few suicide cases
caused either directly or indirectly by trolling. Moreover, cyber bullying is
another source that threaten the peace of social media. Sadly, according to the
professor, many cyber bullying are involved with parents publicly shaming their
teenager children. There is one thing as psychology students we need to be
aware that bullying and trolling are NOT caused by social media, social media
just magnified them. The best way to fight trolling is to ignore it, as people
said “don’t feed the troll.”
In the end, I would like to thank Dr. Kinghorn. His effort of bring social media to the field of psychology is amazing and revolutionary! I really feel honored and appreciated to be a part of this novel and brave class! If you are also interested in Dr. Kinghorn's research and studies, here is the link to his home page. http://www.briankinghorn.com/
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