Systems Engineering Approaches to Minimize the Viral Spread of Social Media Challenges

• Main Author: Khasawneh, Amro
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Clemson University Libraries 2019
• Subjects: agent based model; integrated behavioral model; self-harm; social media challenges; suicide; Blue whale
• Online Access: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/2526; https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3531&context=all_dissertations

Recently, adolescents’ and young adults’ use of social media has significantly increased. While this new landscape of cyberspace offers young internet users many benefits, it also exposes them to numerous risks. One such phenomenon receiving limited research attention is the advent and propagation of viral social media challenges. Several of these challenges entail self-harming behavior, which combined with their viral nature, poses physical and psychological risks for the participants and the viewers. One example of these viral social media challenges that could potentially be propagated through social media is the Blue Whale Challenge (BWC). In the initial study we investigate how people portray the BWC on social media and the potential harm this may pose to vulnerable populations. We first used a thematic content analysis approach, coding 60 publicly posted YouTube videos, 1,112 comments on those videos, and 150 Twitter posts that explicitly referenced BWC. We then deductively coded the YouTube videos based on the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) Messaging guidelines. We found that social media users post about BWC to raise awareness and discourage participating, express sorrow for the participants, criticize the participants, or describe a relevant experience. Moreover, we found most of the videos on YouTube violate at least 50% of the SPRC safe and effective messaging guidelines. These posts might have the problematic effect of normalizing the BWC through repeated exposure, modeling, and reinforcement of self-harming and suicidal behavior, especially among vulnerable populations, such as adolescents. A second study conducted a systematic content analysis of 180 YouTube videos (~813 minutes total length), 3,607 comments on those YouTube videos, and 450 Twitter posts to explore the portrayal and social media users’ perception of three viral social media-based challenges (i.e., BWC, Tide Pod Challenge (TPC), and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Ice Bucket Challenge (IBC)). We identified five common ...