Young people are exposed to more hate online during COVID. And it risks their health

Every time a child goes online they potentially enter an environment of online celebrity bashing, judgemental knee-jerk reactions & toxic negativity. It may not be targeting them but as bystanders it normalises 'hate".

Originally published here The Conversation

Online hate speech between children has skyrocketed 70% since Covid. This means a sharp increase in children acting maliciously online as well as being witness to other youngsters  engaging in online hate. Akin to spending hours every day of your life in any toxic environment, being immersed in the toxicity online day in day out, eats away at their mental and emotional wellbeing. Having detrimental impacts on their health long term.

Online hate is not only cyberbullying, but also the lower-grade, everyday malicious online environment where it's normal to see Twitter pile-ons or people demonising celebrities, or reactive knee-jerk reactions lashing out at others.

The commonly accepted definition of hate proposed by the United Nations is any kind of communication that attacks or uses disapproving or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are.

A recent study [https://l1ght.com/Toxicity_during_coronavirus_Report-L1ght.pdf] analysing millions of websites, popular teen chat sites, and gaming sites revealed extraordinary increases in this type of aggressive intolerance between children. The study showed an increase in levels of bullying and abusive language among children and abuse directed at racial and minority groups. It also indicated a 40% increase in toxicity among young gamers communicating using gaming chat.

Hate speech can take the form of comments, images, and symbols. Controversy has swelled around the use of coded language on TikTok – the world’s most popular social platform for children, to spread hate. For example the number 14 refers to a 14-word-long white supremacist slogan.

What happens online impacts us deeply offline

The fact that it happens online does not mean that it doesn’t affect children. Prince Harry warns of a “global crisis of hate” and he is right. What happens to us online affects us deeply offline. It impacts the mental health of all involved; the person giving out the hate, the person receiving it, and all the people observing it.

Covid has led to children spending more time on social networks, communication apps, chat rooms and gaming services. The new reality is that billions of children and teenagers are now immersed in passive hate, abuse, toxicity, hateful ideologies, and bullying and harassment of individuals and groups every day. Multiple times a day.

How passive online hate harms kids

We have tended to consider the danger to children online in the form of targeted bullying, or video game violence, however passive toxicity and prolonged exposure to negativity has emerged as a new danger impacting children’s mental, emotional and physical health. The amount they encounter, its toxicity, and that it is directed at children means that the impact on them is pronounced.

The increased presence of hate speech in one's environment leads to the erosion of existing anti-discriminatory norms and increased societal polarisation between groups.

Exposure to hate speech results in empathy being replaced by intergroup contempt as a dominant response to others. Terms like “hivemind” (being expected to conform to popular opinion online or risk being the target of hate) and “lynching” (a coordinated social media celebrity hate storm ) are now used to describe this activity online.

In the course of being exposed to hate speech, people's sensitivity to hateful language diminishes. The more hate speech a child observes in their environment, the less emotional arousal they tend to feel. It reduces their ability to recognise the offensive character of such language.

Constantly increased mental preparedness to deal with or respond to microaggressions and hate translates into chronically elevated level of stress, so called minority stress, which can lead to adverse health outcomes, such as depression or anxiety.

If we combine these factors it means that the massive amount of online hate children see every day desensitises them to it. It makes it stressful yet “normal” to see others act this way, and gives the message to children that this is how you act when you are online. It desensitises them to the hurt it can cause, and the importance of and respect for diversity of people and viewpoints. This impacts their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of others. Children are sensitive and vulnerable to aggression they engage with on a screen.

Bad becomes ‘normal’

A major issue is that there is little reputational or punitive risk involved with bad behaviour online. A child playing soccer might get sent off the field in a real-life sporting game for ‘flaming’, or ‘griefing’ (deliberately irritating and harassing other players), but there is no such consequence in online video-game play. Many social platforms have recently expanded their hate speech guidelines including Facebook and TikTok however so long as activity does cross these lines it can continue.

As a result, kids growing up today who are learning that ‘bad behaviour’ online is tolerated, even expected. We get in our own echo chambers online. If what children see every day on their screen is people taking authority and communicating with them badly, then it becomes normalised, and they are willing to accept it is part of life.

What to do

Good health and wellbeing requires good and up-to-date education. This has never rung more true. Digital Literacy is a new basic skill we all need today. It alerts us to seeing through the strategies people use online to manipulate and damage our thinking.

Teaching children not to be in control of technology and giving them the strategies to do identify and call out bad behaviour is the best way we can support them.

What do we teach?

Hate speech is driven not only by the negativity of groups minorities, but also by the simplicity in their portrayal - boys are superior, girls are sidekicks. Teach children to notice over simplicity and that is a put-down strategy.

An aggressor - the one dishing out the hurt - can easily hide behind a non-identifying pseudonym or username. This form of dissociative anonymity allows people to separate from in-person identity and moral agency, which makes them feel free to express hostility and criticism without any effect to the own psyche. Teach your child to be aware of this, to notice this.

Unfortunately we can’t eradicate hate from online but the more understanding of why others post things online and the strategies they use to do this helps a child be more in control of their environment and therefore less impacted by it.