Sharing unsolicited photos and digital bullying are a growing issue among young people. Herd mentality plays a big role here, according to PhD student Daniëlle Bleize. Young people easily follow the (cyber) group mentality, even if they don't know that group at all. It helps to make followers of such a group responsible for their own actions.

Is it funny to share a derogatory picture of a classmate in all sorts of WhatsApp groups? If the classmate doesn’t want it, it’s never funny, you might say. But it happens on WhatsApp with great regularity. More well-known are the stories of nude pictures that go viral. Exciting to share, perhaps, but disastrous for the person in the photo.

Friends

PhD student Daniëlle Bleize researched why young people (twelve to fifteen years) still approve of such actions anyways. ‘I thought that they would think it was okay if their friends thought it was okay as well’, she says. ‘But they are just as inclined to go along with the behaviour of peers that they don’t know at all.’ So it makes no difference if they are friends. If a few young people share an intimate photo, others quickly think that they can or should do the same.

Communication scientist Bleize wrote to a number of schools with the request whether they wanted to participate in her research. In the end, she managed to win over 23 educational institutions, from junior high schools to grammar schools. ‘There was an interest because many schools are struggling with this issue,’ she explains.

In one of her experiments, she had young people who did not know each other chat with each other using a communication channel comparable to WhatsApp. However, the ‘conversation partners’ were not real, they were pre-programmed responses from chatbots. If the first three people in a conversation approved of sharing a photo, person number four often went along with it. ‘Whereas, if you asked adolescents in individual conversations if they thought something was often, the answer was often no.’

Bullying

As in real life, young people online tend to follow the group rather than think for themselves. Who the group is exactly makes little difference. This herd behaviour contributes to the fact that digital bullying can get so out of hand. Victims not only see their photos reappearing in places that were never intended, but gossip about students is also spread or they are deliberately excluded from conversations and social groups.

‘This cyber aggression can have far-reaching consequences,’ says Bleize. ‘For someone’s well-being, or for their school performance. Sometimes it leads to psychological problems or, in extreme cases, even to self-harm.’

A difference with old-fashioned bullying in the schoolyard, is that online actions often cannot be undone. An image always remains traceable and the number of people who know about it is many times greater. ‘In the schoolyard, there are often only a few bystanders who have seen something.’

‘Cyber aggression can have far-reaching consequences’

But there is hope: Bleize found that adolescents behave differently online when they feel like they have to take responsibility for their actions. For example, when they have to have their WhatsApp conversations read by a teacher or a parent afterwards. ‘Or when they understand that what they are doing can have consequences for the victims or for themselves.’ Many young people do not know that it is illegal to save a nude photo of a classmate.

Bleize recalls a group discussion she had at a school. One of the pupils argued like ‘but then you shouldn’t take a nude picture’ and ‘I wasn’t the one who shared the photo first’. If young people are made aware of their own role, they are much better able to reflect on their social media behaviour. Then they understand that they can stop such a snowball effect by not participating in the forwarding of a gossip or nasty video.

‘Parents and teachers can respond to this. Start the conversation. When your child comes home, you can ask them ‘how was your day at school’ but also ‘how was your day online?’’

Anonymous

It helps if adolescents are encouraged to ask themselves why they do something, Bleize states. Are they looking for sensation? Do they feel a need to belong? ‘Being popular or wanting to become popular can be an important strategy at that age to gain status. Or to make sure that you do not become the victim yourself.’

Communicating behind a smartphone or computer screen can also feel so anonymous and ‘safe’, that young people do not always realise what the effect on the other person could be. In a follow-up study, Daniëlle Bleize would like to investigate how you can positively influence the social media behaviour of young people. ‘Because it also brings so ‘many positive things, such as friendships and forming your identity.’

But first she is going to catch her breath after defending her thesis last Thursday. A photo of her degree is already the centre of attention in her WhatsApp groups.