As shooting rates among the young remain stratospheric, evidence suggests social media is serving as an accelerant to violence. Taunts that once could be forgotten now live on before large audiences, prompting people to take action.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.