Introduction
It is important to note that social media became one of the most valuable instruments of the modern age, but it also brought a set of its own issue with it. Human behavior is a complex set of perceptive, interactive, and communicative expressions of one’s thoughts, emotions, and feelings. Although social media made communication significantly more effective and efficient due to faster information delivery and exchange as well as provided a substantially higher degree of freedom and range of expression for its users, the ramifications are rooted in a notion of dismissal of key intricacies of face-to-face human interaction, which evolved over millions of years.
It is important to note that social media communication can encompass a larger audience compared to an in-person conversation or on the phone, which is why people tend to act differently on these platforms. These underlying differences can be manifested in both perceptively good and bad behaviors, and the given analysis will primarily focus on these two areas of alteration. Therefore, people act differently on social media by engaging in conspicuous virtue signaling, trolling, abusing, and harassing, which is due to a lower degree of empathy, reciprocity, and lack of in-built social ramifications.
Seemingly Positive Behaviors
Social media, as an instrument of communication and interactions, can be used to convey positive messages, whether the intentions are sincere or pretentious. In regards to the latter, people tend to use virtue signaling on social media platforms, such as the conspicuous form of virtue signaling. Research suggests that there are two main groups of conspicuous virtue signaling, which are self-oriented or other-oriented (Wallace et al. 578).
On the one hand, self-oriented conspicuous virtue signaling is the behavior when a person is engaging in virtue signaling for his or her internal needs, such as feeling good about oneself. On the other hand, other-oriented conspicuous virtue-signaling occurs when an individual engages in the act in order to convey a message to other people, such as wanting to impress friends.
In my own experience, I noticed that some people could be sincere with their intentions, where they “practice what they preach.” In other words, I encountered people who care about their environmental footprint, which is why they practice eco-friendly consumerism and avoid an unnecessary increase in their carbon footprint. However, I also know individuals who share posts online about some campaigns or excessively write about topics, which are positive on their own, but in real life, they do not practice these actions, and in most cases, go against what they post or share.
The latter is what I consider as problematic since such a behavior can be highly pretentious or even unethical. For example, I have no issue with people virtue signaling for their own self-esteem in order to feel good about themselves, although I do not necessarily support it. My concerns arise when one uses virtue signaling to use it for monetary gain or to spread toxic behavior. For instance, a social media influencer advocating for something inherently good but deceiving his or her followers to use his or her products or support affiliates.
Negative Behaviors
Although virtue signaling can be annoying at the least and unethical at the most, social media can reveal people’s worst sides of behavioral patterns, such as trolling, harassing, and bullying. A study suggests that “women and members of ethnic minority groups are disproportionately the targets of Twitter abuse, including death threats and threats of sexual violence” (Vince par. 3). In other words, certain cases can even lead to suicides among victims, which is why social media platforms can propagate not only unethical behaviors but also immoral ones. Such a change in online behavior can also affect people at the highest seats of power, where it is stated that “Black and Asian female MPs received on average 35% more abusive tweets than their white female colleagues” (Vince par. 3). Therefore, it is not a small number of occurrences but rather a widespread phenomenon on the internet.
I, like most people, am an avid social media user, and it is not uncommon to see negative and hateful comments under Instagram posts, YouTube videos, or Facebook blogs. Even when topics of discussion are not politically charged or have benevolent intentions, some users will find to argue about, which can lead to a downward spiral of personal attacks and slurs. Although some platforms can have a higher rate of such behaviors than others, the problem is present everywhere online.
Reasons Behind Behavioral Changes
Over the past decade, social networks have become firmly established both in all areas of activity and in the daily life of almost everyone. At the same time, over the period from the moment of their appearance to the present, social networks have undergone serious transformations. For example, their technical capabilities have expanded, the number of functions has increased, and at the same time, the number of users and daily visits have increased. Therefore, providing a person with new unique opportunities for interaction and development, at the same time requires him to master new knowledge, norms, and behavioral skills to generate new problems.
The acquisition of new knowledge, skills, and abilities for different users of social networks occurs in different ways. It depends on many factors, among the main ones it can be noted as the displayed activity in the development of social media and the Internet space in general, the degree of media literacy, general literacy, the level of education, the innate ability of a person to perceive information and how to use it, life position and others.
Therefore, it should be noted that virtue signaling, trolling, harassment, and bullying can take place offline, but there are inherent social cues and barriers to preventing such occurrences, which is why people are more likely to be abusive, and pretentious, or inappropriate online than offline. The first factor is the relative anonymity of the internet, where one’s identity does not necessarily have to match his or her real-life identity. Although it does not explain every instance of these behavioral changes, most people either do not care about their online social perception or do not build accounts, which match their identities. Thus, there is a strong level of disconnect between people’s identities online and offline, which manifests in a major shift in behavioral patterns exhibited on social media.
The second factor is the lack of social ramifications, such as social justice, where one can be abusive or inappropriate online, and there are no immediate consequences for their actions. If a person slurs at or harasses someone in public, he or she will observe the reactions of nearby people, and some of them might even intervene by calling law enforcement or acting directly. Even the basic allowed but shameful actions will be judged by others, and these reactions will be perceived by an actor due to built-in psychological and cognitive mechanisms evolved through millions of years. Humans are social creatures, which means that there are strong and powerful mechanisms that discourage one from acting inappropriately, such as embarrassment, social disapproval, and social judgment.
The third factor is a lower degree of empathy online, which is substantiated by the fact that empathy requires social cues, such as facial expressions, body language, or a change in one’s voice. Therefore, phone-based conversations are not as behavior-altering as social media. Online communication lacks a necessary level of intuitive empathy, where one can be attacking or trolling someone without observing their reactions in real life. For example, I have seen online arguments, which I have not observed in real life since people need to deal with an opponent’s reaction as well.
Conclusion
In conclusion, people act differently on social media than they do in person or on the phone, which can be manifested in seemingly positive behavioral changes as well as explicitly negative ones. In the case of the former, virtue signaling is a prime example, where a person can express engage in conspicuous virtue signaling for either his or her own internal needs or others, such as impressing friends. In regards to explicitly negative behavioral changes, these alterations can be actions, such as trolling, harassing, or bullying, which are more common online than offline due to a lack of built-in social cues and barriers, such as empathy, social judgment, and social disapproval alongside direct interventions from others.
Works Cited
Vince, Gaia. ” Evolution Explains Why We Act Differently Online.” BBC. Web.
Wallace, Elaine, et al. “‘Consuming Good’ on Social Media: What Can Conspicuous Virtue Signalling on Facebook Tell Us About Prosocial and Unethical Intentions?” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 162, 2018, pp. 577–592.