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How Social Media Apps Could Be Fueling Homicides Among Young Americans (www.propublica.org)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This article is not even as nuanced as my dismissive comment. This is the closest it comes to nuance:

Criminologists point to a confluence of factors, including the social disruptions caused by COVID‑19, the rise in gun sales early in the pandemic and the uproar following the murder of George Floyd, which, in many cities, led to diminished police activity and further erosion of trust in the police. But in my reporting on the surge, I kept hearing about another accelerant: social media.

Notice that the didn't mention anything that I mentioned in the above quote or throughout the rest of the article. The article is framed in a way that suggests homicide is primarily the result of interpersonal conflicts within a community its audience probably assumes is predisposed to violence. It only talks about one community, by the way. The premise of the article is that if not for social media, these already violent people would have fewer reasons to bring harm to one another. The article never asks why there would be violence in these communities or any community and it doesn't investigate why things are different today than they were in the 90s. I wouldn't have said anything if this was not a trend in American media. The actual cause of these issues can't be the issue, so we need to scapegoat something else that may as you said be aggravating the issue but is absolutely not the cause of the issue.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So an article talking about one specific factor talks about one specific factor. I'm not sure you really responded to my comment here. Quotes from the article.

Smartphones and social platforms existed long before the homicide spike; they are obviously not its singular cause.

When the pandemic led officials to close civic hubs such as schools, libraries and rec centers for more than a year, people — especially young people — were pushed even further into virtual space.

The current spike in violence isn’t a return to ’90s-era murder rates — it’s something else entirely. In many cities, the violence has been especially concentrated among the young

Yes this article focuses on violence in black communities and I have no doubt there's a bias at play there both on the authors part and a lot of the audience. But the actual point of the article isn't incorrect, though it wades into rap music as some building arguments it's pulling specific examples and making specific arguments about them. To engage with the article in a reasonable way you'd need to actually respond to those points.

The article isn't trying to scapegoat social media, I didn't get that impression at all and it seems king outrage manufacturing to be focusing on that interpretation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

To focus exclusively on the incomplete sociological perspective provided by this particular article would be to totally ignore the much more significant and empirically supported factors at play which go unmentioned. This is specifically why I consider this article to be a diversion rather than a reliable critique of a modern issue. If this article were to do any exploration of why the violence was taking place in the first place and how new technology was related to those actual reasons I would consider this an actual analysis. The headline and the framing of the argument in my opinion are extremely misleading considering the reality of these issues. The reason I used the term “scapegoating” is that this article seems to suggest that social media itself is a driver or homicides rather than the context and content of whatever is in these communications which appear on social media that result in violence.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

article seems to suggest that social media itself is a driver or homicides rather than the context and content of whatever is in these communications which appear on social media that result in violence.

A wild misrepresentation of the article. It is strange to take "impersonal communications make aggression easier combined with physical isolation has an effect on violence" to be "Twitter is killing people"

To focus exclusively on the incomplete sociological perspective

Every perspective is incomplete. That's impossible to avoid, just because in this specific case you've decided to care about that fact doesn't make their article wrong.

would be to totally ignore the much more significant and empirically supported factors at play which go unmentione

They don't even to unmentioned.

OK so you're really at this point just looking for reasons to talk about rhetoric and complain they didn't write the entire article about xyz problem that's easier to discuss since it's already been sound bitten to oblivion. This isn't productive. Cheers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I had a feeling we were talking past one another. No hard feelings. Cheers.