After reading Oegema’s article, I learned a lot about an act called Flaming. Flaming is the “practice of expressing oneself more strongly on the computer than one would in other communication settings.” In other words, its behaving on social media platforms in a very angry and hostile manner.

When most people think of communicating on social media, they think of it as having access to anything they want online, anytime they want. However, no one ever really thinks about the fact that there is a dark side to CMC and the actuality that not all interactions online and through CMC are positive. Online abuse is super common and can appear in the forms of cyber bullying, online stalking, hostile reactions, etc. Flaming can cause people to feel sadness, fear, depression and sometime react in harmful ways that are at times fatal.

It is important to remember that CMC should not be an outlet to hide behind and cause harm, but should more so be a place to find new things, kill time, etc. Not hurt feelings and have extreme courage that you normally wouldn’t have, to harm others.