Is social media shaping world politics and is populist agenda now more important than democrasy?

EarthRod

Is biting fingernails down to the quick and produces bleeding considered self-harm?

IronGiant

Probably, and my mum did that 80 years ago...

EarthRod

Yes. There are many other examples of 'self-harm' which were considered unremarkable in the past but are now defined, labelled and put in a box ready for the media and specialists to deeply analyse and write articles and theses (pleural of thesis - I had to look it up!) on it.

I shall leave it there.

IronGiant

I'm not sure why self harm was even introduced as it's not really relevant to this thread.  {checks who mentioned it first}  Ah he was going for populism then...

IronGiant

I'm pretty sure bullying in schools was worse in the past. Schools seem better at dealing with this.

I'm not saying it was better in the past overall, but it's not right to say that things have only got worse - some are better.

Faust

I'm not suggesting it has.  Bullying is bullying, and self harm is self harm. As a father of teenage children I am fully aware both go on.  I'm not convinced social media has made it worse, just provided another platform for it to be recognised on. Hence easier to spot.

Faust

I don't see how it's safe to assume anything.  What you can say at best is 'we simply don't know'.  Given I'm not aware you have professional credentials in this area of research (apologies if you have) I think I'll stick with what I've read from the professionals i.e. the full report which you can download as a PDF.

Sonic67

I genuinely worry about social media, hence why I don't go near it.  I accept that it could be a force for good, but like many well intentioned ideas they often get hijacked by those whose intentions can be far less honourable.  My heart sinks when I read from time to time about a young person who has taken their own life after being subjected to bullying on social media.  Children can be very cruel and instead of this just happening in the school playground (which is bad enough) it gets played out before a global audience.  It's all very very sad.

I do know one organisation that love Facebook et-al and that's law enforcement.  The Police solve a lot of crime via social media platforms because people being people they often can't resist bragging about their various nefarious activities, some even post videos of their exploits.

Bl4ckGryph0n

Me too. I went off the facts as exactly as they were given.

Bl4ckGryph0n

Agreed, but then bullies would remain to ahem bullying like they've always done but without cyber in front