Civility vs. Incivility in Online Social Interactions: An Evolutionary Approach

Society for Vascular Surgery best practice recommendations for use of social media

The use of social media (SoMe) in medicine has demonstrated the ability to advance networking among clinicians and other healthcare staff, disseminate research, increase access to up-to-date information, and inform and engage medical trainees and the public at-large. With increasing SoMe use by vascular surgeons and other vascular specialists, it is important to uphold core tenets of our commitment to our patients by protecting their privacy, encouraging appropriate consent and use of any patient-related imagery, and disclosing relevant conflicts of interest. Additionally, we recognize the potential for negative interactions online regarding differing opinions on optimal treatment options for patients. The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) is committed to supporting appropriate and effective use of SoMe content that is honest, well-informed, and accurate. The Young Surgeons Committee of the SVS convened a diverse writing group of SVS members to help guide novice as well as veteran SoMe users on best practices for advancing medical knowledge-sharing in an online environment. These recommendations are presented here with the goal of elevating patient privacy and physician transparency, while also offering support and resources for infrequent SoMe users to increase their engagement with each other in new, virtual formats.

Increases in Depression, Self‐Harm, and Suicide Among U.S. Adolescents After 2012 and Links to Technology Use: Possible Mechanisms

Objective

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Depression, self‐harm, suicide, and unhappiness suddenly increased among adolescents after 2012, especially among girls and young women.

Increases in depression among adolescents have been concurrent with increases in digital media use.

Increased digital media and smartphone use may influence mental health via several mechanisms, including displacement and disruption of in‐person social interactions, interference with sleep, cyberbullying, and online information about self‐harm.

Bots and online hate during the COVID-19 pandemic: case studies in the United States and the Philippines

Online hate speech represents a serious problem exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Although often anchored in real-world social divisions, hate speech in cyberspace may also be fueled inorganically by inauthentic actors like social bots. This work presents and employs a methodological pipeline for assessing the links between hate speech and bot-driven activity through the lens of social cybersecurity. Using a combination of machine learning and network science tools, we empirically characterize Twitter conversations about the pandemic in the United States and the Philippines. Our integrated analysis reveals idiosyncratic relationships between bots and hate speech across datasets, highlighting different network dynamics of racially charged toxicity in the US and political conflicts in the Philippines. Most crucially, we discover that bot activity is linked to higher hate in both countries, especially in communities which are denser and more isolated from others. We discuss several insights for probing issues of online hate speech and coordinated disinformation, especially through a global approach to computational social science.

Addressing bullying behaviour by patients and families

This article explores the ethical dilemma of maintaining patient experience and care team well-being when faced with coercive behaviour, specifically bullying by patients, families and substitute decision-makers, which is directed toward providers and health support workers. We discuss some of the contributing societal and environmental factors, the ethical implications for health leaders, and suggest some practical options for managing bullying situations in hospitals.

Confronting Incivility in the Online Classroom

Confronting incivility in the online classroom can significantly benefit from spiritual approaches that address behaviors on a continuum of mild to aggressive. This may include the need to intervene when covert or overt threats occur. Electronic communications can lead to misperceptions and misunderstandings between students and faculty. Lack of understanding of diverse cultures, life experiences, and professional and spiritual histories can lead to behaviors that are perceived as intentionally hostile when, in fact, they are not. It is important in the online classroom to differentiate between the two and establish expected virtual classroom behaviors.

Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention

Theoretical models of critical mass have shown how minority groups can initiate social change dynamics in the emergence of new social conventions. Here, we study an artificial system of social conventions in which human subjects interact to establish a new coordination equilibrium. The findings provide direct empirical demonstration of the existence of a tipping point in the dynamics of changing social conventions. When minority groups reached the critical mass-that is, the critical group size for initiating social change-they were consistently able to overturn the established behavior. The size of the required critical mass is expected to vary based on theoretically identifiable features of a social setting. Our results show that the theoretically predicted dynamics of critical mass do in fact emerge as expected within an empirical system of social coordination.