Send Nudes
Dear 21st century reader,
Mobile phones and their technology, as useful as they are, can also be extremely dangerous.
This takes me back to 2014. I still remember being in a class room on a Monday at Junior College sixth form, when all of a sudden everyone just started looking at their phones, and all of us were looking at a naked photo of our own classmate. During that week, nude photos of Maltese teenage girls were being released from thin air; it was the only thing that people could talk about. They were people who were actually building their own collection of nude photos of these girls. It was (and still is known) as the week that the nudes took over Malta.
To this day, some of the girls are still affected because of this, even more so because we live in Malta where even if two people have never crossed paths they would still know each other. Word of mouth travels fast in Malta, so can you imagine the power of the Maltese grapevine on mobile?
Insane!
A number of years ago, there was also a video of a Maltese TV actress performing sexual acts being heavily shared on Whatsapp. This was released as revenge by her ex-lover. This led into her losing her job, and till today being labelled for it. And let’s not get into the now infamous ‘Shower time’ videos and Richard from Malta Post. All of these, when seen, were taken with a pinch of salt, but really and truly they have damaged the people associated with them.
Snapchat direct messaging allowed users to send photos with a viewing span of ten seconds for twenty-four hours. This though, led to users earning a care free attitude about what they post, and many a times without thinking of any type of repercussions.
I personally know quite a number of people who got fired from their jobs because of what they posted on Snapchat thinking that it will quickly disappear, but none the less, one should follow the modern commandment:
“one should always think before one posts”.
Many of the above posts or videos were seen and then quickly sent to our friends for us to share a good laugh with. But no one takes a second to think about the people actually involved, and how this will affect their lives for the foreseeable future. From a 2018 statistics study, it resulted that from those bullied, 37% developed social anxiety while 36% fell into depression.
Many a time, these people end up being bullied and even threatened for literally a split of a second when they let their guard down. Such incidents should serve us as lessons which we should learn from, especially for the sake of our future generations who are surrounded with people recording every little action on their phone.
Statistics from 2018 found that only 35% of UK students have never been a victim of cyberbullying, while 7% suffer on a regular basis. Also, 33% of young respondents have sent explicit images or texted such at least once. Finally, Social media cyberbullying is most prevalent in Instagram (42%), followed by Facebook (37%) and Snapchat (31%).
I have many a time caught my 8 year old niece posing in front of the mirror and taking selfies with my non-functioning Ipod touch. Even though, as a family, none of us are fond of selfies, what saddens me the most is seeing my niece acting like a grown up, instead of imagining that she’s on a wild quest to find a hidden treasure. I truly believe that our children should be educated in schools, that there is a very bold fine line between online and offline, and enjoying moments in real time is what life is all about. But maybe that’s just my opinion.
I would also like to touch the point on privacy and what it has come to. When I was young, I used to write all about my day, secrets and wishes in a locked diary and hide the key very well, even though the lock could be opened by just the minor of struggles. Today, we simply go online and share with our hundreds of followers all about our day, to not only close friends but whoever wishes to follow our account.
Plus, the more views or likes to our posts or images, the more our self ego boosts, giving us the courage to post more the next day, self kidding ourselves that our followers are fans and enjoy seeing what we ate for lunch or how good we look at the gym.
The truth is, humans love snooping and knowing about other’s lives to compare with theirs, both positively and negatively. Also, the spontaneity of natural events make us feel more connected and intimate with our followers or follow-ees.
And, I can justify this from personal thoughts, where I have found myself evaluating my Instagram account and thinking on how I don’t post enough. Why ? Is it bad to want to share more to random followers about your life, has privacy become a thing of the past ? And is this the new evolution — that it is completely normal to share your day with others ? The fact that everyone has a phone at hand and can film anything at any given moment, is this a good thing? Could this lead to a decrease in crime rates or is this leading to citizens only caring on getting the views then what really is happening or to even help out ?
How about how users try to alter and exaggerate their way of living ? Only the care-free and always smiling part is shown. Is this ephemeral platform helping psychologically, making people focus more on the positive things ? Or is it an illusion for people to be seen ?
When drinking at the bar, we tend to film our friends cheering and having more fun than what is is actually going on; are we trying to prove something or distracting ourselves from what is really going on? Or is it an innocent move because who wants to see sad friends drinking or couples arguing ?
A study has been conducted resulting that more than a third of millennials have shared deceitful and deceiving photos especially when they are on vacation and 65% of them are posted to make viewers and followers jealous. The massive platform, Instagram has also been termed to be the highest platform to cause mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. The Director of the Media Psychology Research Center, explains how it is dangerous to obsess with ourselves presenting online, this
“allows others to have the power to define your value.”
Should you have any thoughts or ideas on the matter please feel free to share.
Cheers,
Leah
This blog is a project for Study Unit DGA3008, University of Malta.
