It's Complicated

5. bullying - is social media amplifying meanness and cruelty?

When I met white seventeen-year-old Abigail at a Starbucks in North Carolina, I was struck by her poise. A competitive swimmer, she was applying to highly respected colleges like Georgetown and Brown. She really liked Brown, but it didn't have a swim team as strong as those at less academically oriented schools actively recruiting her. In explaining her decision-making process, she showed the elegance and confidence of a typical upper-middle-class white teen trying to impress an adult. As our conversation continued and veered into more personal subjects, I started to notice self-doubt, particularly when issues of friendship and interpersonal conflict emerged.

While I was talking to Abigail, my collaborator, Alice Marwick, was interviewing her fourteen-year-old sister across the room, out of earshot. When I would glance over at their conversation, I couldn't help but reflect on how different the sisters' demeanor was. Unlike Abigail, Ashley appeared uninterested in composing herself for adult approval. Her cross-armed slouch and nonconformist fashion suggested a more rebellious spirit. I began to wonder how the sisters got along.[1]

At one point, as I was asking Abigail about her relationship with her parents on Facebook, she brought up her sister. Almost as a side note, Abigail mentioned that her mother treated her differently than Ashley. I asked her to explain. Her expression changed and she sighed in a way that suggested a long-standing household issue. Abigail told me that she is the darling of the house and that her mother doesn't trust Ashley. Immediately after saying that, Abigail quickly and nervously attempted to justify her mother's differential treatment by highlighting how Ashley always managed to get into trouble.

Abigail explained that when Ashley and her friends were in fourth grade, they used an instant messenger to say mean things about another girl at school.

And then the other girl found out about it and it became a bullying thing and my mom was like that's not acceptable, so [Ashley] was like banned from IM. Then when she was old enough so she could get a Facebook—and she wanted to get a Facebook because her friends were getting Facebooks—[Mom] got one too just so she could monitor [Ashley].

Abigail recounted stories of her sister getting into trouble at school and how Ashley would threaten to put embarrassing information on Facebook to humiliate Abigail in front of her friends. While explaining all of this, Abigail fidgeted uncomfortably, so I tried not to push the issue too far. Later, after I turned the recorder off and while we were waiting for Alice and Ashley to finish talking, I casually asked about Ashley again. More comfortable now, Abigail told me that she saw her sister as a bully. She didn't trust her sister, but at the same time, she felt sorry for her. From Abigail's perspective, Ashley didn't seem to understand that she hurt people whenever she lashed out. Abigail had tried — and, from her perspective, failed — to help Ashley see the consequences of her attitude and behavior, but she had since given up on helping her. Her mother and those in her school focused more on restricting and punishing Ashley. This made Ashley more frustrated and less cooperative.

While I was talking with Abigail, Ashley told Alice that there was very little outright bullying in her community; the meanness and cruelty she saw at school often took the form of what she called "indirect bullying" — gossip and rumors — or "drama." Ashley told Alice about various incidents that took place at school and among classmates, such as when boys mocked cheerleaders for their eating habits. Gossip about who might be pregnant, who was hooking up with whom, and who did what while drunk appeared to be standard fare. Ashley also described the cliques at school, the normalized fashion statements meant to show who was in and who was out, the dynamics of good and bad attention, and the politics of "frenemies" — friends who are sometimes enemies when faced with competition, jealousy, and mistrust.

As Alice and I shared notes about our interviews, Alice realized that Ashley used gossip and aggression to enforce her own social mores while simultaneously rejecting the idea that she was initiating any social conflict. Ashley's joyous recounting of school gossip paralleled her stated love of watching TV characters engage in drama and her general appreciation for knowing what's happening in people's lives. She liked being in the middle of what was happening. At the same time, Ashley told Alice that she thought her mother and sister were overreacting to the fights she got into and that her actions were justifiable, given how others treated her. When conflict emerged, Ashley saw other people as the ones causing problems while she was just left to react; although she didn't mind reacting, she couldn't see why people got upset by how she reacted.