Social Media Harms
Cyberbullying Has Tragic Consequences
A Tribute to Carson Bride
Carson James Bride was a quiet, caring 16 year old who had recently completed his sophomore year at Riverdale High School near Portland, Oregon. He was active in soccer, drama, site council, robotics and was a skillful skier who delighted in teaching his sport to children.
In spring 2020, like many students throughout the United States, he started attending school online. He missed his friends from school, so he downloaded the Snapchat app on his smartphone and started inviting his friends from school to be on his My Story (private) friends list. One of the people in his private friends list downloaded the Snapchat secondary apps Yolo and LMN. These apps allowed users to send anonymous messages.
In his past, Carson fainted while at school.
After starting to use Snapchat, Carson received anonymous, sexually explicit messages from a “friend” who claimed to have performed sex acts on him while he was unconscious during the fainting incident. He received as many as 100 such messages a day, over a series of weeks, many including threats of bodily harm.
Carson tried repeatedly to find out who was sending these messages. His smartphone included messages asking the user to identify themselves so they could talk out their differences. The bully refused.
Embarrassment and fear
Carson did not tell his parents nor school officials about the anonymous messages. He hid the fact that he felt terrified and ashamed. No one reported this harassment to anyone who could intervene — parents, school officials, or other trusted adults.
On June 23, 2020, Carson died by suicide.
Kristin Bride, Carson’s mother, shared his story on the podcast No App for Life. She related that several weeks after Carson died, a popular student at Riverdale High School came to visit her. The student told her that other students knew about the harassment that Carson was experiencing. The student told her that they would have considered suicide also if they had been subject to such abuse.
Trying to Right the Wrongs
Kristin tried to contact Snapchat about her son’s harassment. She never received any replies to her requests for assistance.
Kristin then contacted the Center for Humane Technology (CHT) and asked for help. CHT connected her with the Tyler Clementi Foundation. Together, they filed a class action lawsuit against Snapchat (Snap, Inc.), Yolo (Yolo Technolgies) and LMN (Lightspace, Inc.) citing strict liability, negligence, fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation. In May 2021, Snapchat suspended use of Yolo and LMN in the United States.
Kristin also advocated for legislation regarding bullying in the state of Oregon. In 2021, the Oregon legislature passed HB 2631, requiring schools to develop processes for handling complaints of any type of harassment, including cyberbullying. The legislation requires school officials to communicate with parents and other stakeholders when allegations of harassment are submitted.
Driving Awareness to Create Action
Jean Rogers, Director of the Screentime Action Network, was also a guest on the No App for Life podcast series, “The Harms.” She thanked host Joni Siani for producing this series of podcasts to raise awareness of the harms to teens and children that can occur from social media use. This series interviews parents who have lost their children to social media bullying and other incidents. These parents feel isolated, but want to ensure that other teens and children do not die or suffer other harms. They are taking action by sharing their stories and advocating for laws and regulations that make Big Tech firms accountable for the negative effects of their services.
Siani noted that the way that humans communicate with each other has changed radically with the rising use of internet services and social media. She observed that social media is having an impact on people, more than just noting statistics. Both she and Rogers commented on the U.S. Senate hearings on Facebook and Instagram in the fall of 2021. Senators displayed charts regarding the rising rate of teen suicides, treating internet safety like just another statistic, not an issue that affects people’s lives.
Social Media is highlighting the generational gap between parents and children
Rogers and Siani also observed that these tragic outcomes are happening to good kids, with involved parents. Children and teens are growing up in a world that is unfamiliar to their parents. Traditional methods of ensuring children’s safety such as: parents meeting their children’s friends, setting curfews, ensuring regular communication during family mealtimes and other methods will not work in today’s online environment. There is a huge disconnect between in-real-life and online activities: parents cannot see what is going on in social media; developmentally, teens think they are invincible. Siani remarked:
“93–96% of parents don’t know the hurt their children are going through.”
Instagram’s Teen Mental Health Deep Dive Study released by Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, as a part of the Facebook Papers, states:
“the extension of bullying and friendship conflict is new, it’s now in teens’ bedrooms as well as the school yard. In the moment, there are very few mechanisms that young people can draw on when they face bullying online.”
“Most teens think friends and parents should help them with the challenges they face..at the same time, parent’s can’t understand and don’t know how to help..social media has fundamentally changed the landscape of adolescence.”
Parents can take action to prevent cyberbullying
These incidents can make parents feel helpless to protect their children. Given the technical and structural limitations of social media and online platforms, governmental regulation is the only way to ensure safer online experiences for children and teens. In the United States, parents can take action to prevent cyberbullying by contacting their senators and asking them to support the Kids Online Safety Act.
Concerned about cyberbulling and other online harms? Contact Screentime Action Network or check out the website Social Media Harms (SMH). SMH provides a listing of peer-reviewed studies, scholarly books, and articles from authoritative sources that document the negative effects of social media use. The site also lists links to organizations dedicated to reducing the harms created by social media platforms and other online services. We do not solicit donations, however, we are asking for additions to our lists of peer reviewed studies and authoritative books and articles.
