Science Careers has launched ‘Letters to Young Scientists,’ a column that aims to offer students in the sciences useful and candid advice.

The column is inspired by scientists’ century-long tradition of sending letters with words of wisdom to aspiring scientists.

According to Science, ‘Letters to Young Scientists’ borrows its name from EO Wilson’s Letters to a Young Scientist and John Cacioppo’s “A Letter to Young Scientists.”

One of the authors of this monthly feature is William Cunningham, a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto who studies emotion and self-perception.

Recently, The Varsity had the opportunity to speak with Cunningham about this new initiative and his advice to students considering or currently in graduate studies.

The Varsity: What drew you to this new initiative and what do you hope the impact of this column will be?

William Cunningham: Jay Van Bavel and June Gruber, two professors that initiated the column, are very public all the time. When they started putting out information to the world through social media channels, many people were suddenly downloading all of their materials that they just made for their graduate students.

I think they started to realize that there’s wide variety in graduate student mentorship. You can luck into having a great mentor who will sit down and work with you all the time and you can also have a mentor who basically abandons you and you never see them again.

Even if you have a good mentor, there’s a lot of different perspectives. I have some ideas of what it means to be a great graduate student — I know it works for me and I believe it works for my students.

Obviously, you want different perspectives, to have a resource where various people can put ideas out and start debating and talking about them, and I felt there was a gap to be filled.

TV: How do you think the digital age has redefined mentorship? Do you believe that social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter are a valuable platform for mentorship?

WC: I generally believe, maybe it’s because I’m old, that the best form of mentorship is one-on-one where you really understand the person’s unique situation. I worry a little bit about a lot of the advice that gets put to social media — it’s very unfiltered. It’s very angry a lot of the time, and oftentimes very pessimistic.

One thing I’ve noticed especially in the academic world is that the more time you spend on Twitter, the more you’re convinced you should never get a PhD, you should never bother, everything is stacked against you, and that life is just a giant pile of misfortune, whereas, that’s really not the case.

Most people who work hard and want some type of academic job, at least in psychology, will get it. I feel like sometimes this Twitter world of setting up this massive feeling of pessimism is not helping anyone.

Someone once told me that the best way of succeeding is having unrealistic optimism, because if you fall short of your overly optimistic goal, you still massively succeed.

I think that the goal of this column is to try to frame things in ways that are going to be more optimistic.

TV: What are unique pressures today’s young scientists face and what needs to change in graduate and postgraduate education to counteract these cultural problems in science?

WC: There has been a change in expectation over time. When I went to graduate school in the 1990s, people didn’t think they were all going to get jobs at Harvard.

I never anticipated I would end up in a place like the University of Toronto. I think that a lot of people, like when I went to graduate school, had more realistic ideas about where they were going to end up.

It’s really important for people to know that the other end of it isn’t guaranteed. If everyone is trying to be the best person on the market, that means everyone but the best person… on the market feels like a failure.

The other end of it also comes from the internet, that I think it allows a lot more social comparison. It really comes down to expectations and social comparison. I believe people set themselves up for seeing anything other than one version as failure, as opposed to seeing a myriad of types of success. 

TV: What would you say to someone who is unsure of pursuing science if they don’t feel like they will fit in?

WC: Someone might think they want to be in psychology but they realize they wanted to do cellular biology. Why take five years to figure that out, when you can do one year and say, ‘Look, I still want to be a scientist but I didn’t realize psychology was this kind of science,’ or ‘I didn’t realize that chemistry was just going to be beakers.’

Here’s strange advice about fitting in. You never want to feel excluded.

The concern about graduate school for many is that they are unsure what they will get in five years and whether graduate school is a stepping stone to the next stage of an individual’s career path. It’s not a lifetime commitment. Sometimes you might make sacrifices to make the short-term end.

Regardless, the most important aspect of graduate school is your relationship with the advisor. If someone gets along with the advisor interpersonally and they have a good dynamic, that will help out in so many other places. I feel like, out of all the things, that’s the one you should be monitoring the most.

TV: What is one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?

WC: I wish I had tried to seek out more tractable things early on such as building toward  larger goals and specializing in one or two phenomena.  I think  I was all over the place, as opposed to really diving deeply on one thing. I ended up being a jack of all trades, which I enjoyed, but I think I suffered from it a bit later in my career.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Facebook has been going through some stuff recently: alleged election-meddling Russian agents, a leak of 87 million users’ data to Cambridge Analytica, more election-meddling scandals, a $119 billion loss in July, and more.

But even as an increasing number of users try to ditch Facebook’s original platform, the company still has one major thing going for it: Instagram. Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, and its value has since increased to over $100 billion. While Facebook broke records for most money lost in a single day, Instagram reached one billion users in July, up from 800 million just last fall.

These gains aren’t particularly surprising, given that so many of the people I know who use Instagram seem to genuinely enjoy doing so. And that’s what separates Instagram from so many other social media networks that a lot of us still use just because they’re so inconvenient to leave — cough, Facebook, cough.

I have numerous friends who actively espouse their love for Instagram. What’s more, the social network has become a powerful platform for activism — which is more than can be said for most other sites.

In case you couldn’t tell, I generally count myself among the Insta-fans. For me, the appeal initially lay in the artistic aspects. Much as it may inspire some eyerolling from non-believers, I maintain that Instagram is a wonderful creative outlet, even for those of us who don’t typically think of ourselves as artists. As I delved a little deeper, however, I found myself more entranced by the communities that put down roots on Instagram in its early days and have since flourished.

Of these, a personal favourite is Body Positivity (BoPo), a movement largely centred on sharing images of bodies that do not conform to societal ideals. Largely targeting people in recovery from disordered eating, BoPo is pretty niche, but the most popular accounts, including Tess Holliday’s and Megan Jayne Crabbe’s, have amassed over a million followers each.

A recent op-ed in The New York Times also detailed the utility of Instagram for finding self-representation as an ethnic minority, in this case as an Afro-Latina, when representation in mainstream media remains elusive. These groups, which are easily discoverable through tags, give millions of people the chance to see other people who look like them and have been through the same experiences as them.

For many of these communities, Instagram is a natural fit. For one, putting imagery front and centre lends itself well to groups seeking to normalize certain aspects of the physical self, be it body mass, disability, or race. Just as importantly, Instagram has traditionally served a different social function than its competitors: it is less of a hub to connect with friends and family and more of a place to explore photography, art, and other content that interests you.

Now that Instagram is on its way to being the “next Facebook,” however, there’s a chance that a lot could change. The recent uptick in new monthly users — while Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter have all reported a slowdown — reflects an intensified, systematic effort by its owners to make sure that the social media network is constantly improving, which is admittedly a strategy first adopted by Facebook.

However, one consequence of many recent changes is that Instagram really is starting to feel more like Facebook; the creative side has been downplayed and the social side emphasized. You’re not posting that vacation photo because it’s pretty; you’re posting it because you want your followers to see how pretty your vacation was.

The other problem with this ethos, naturally, is money. When Facebook says it wants to make Instagram “better,” they don’t mean by making it more enjoyable or beneficial to the user; it means bringing in more eyeballs to look at more ads.

If indeed Facebook is losing steam, then Instagram will inevitably need to be retooled, given that, in its current state, it is not particularly profitable. That means prioritizing advertisers and sponsored content over the user experience.

Exhibit A: A healthy dose of ads for weight loss programs, mixed into my Body Positive feed. The algorithm doesn’t care about safe space, and if Instagram is no longer a safe space, then it will no longer be the place to grow a community.

Obviously, I can’t knock Facebook for wanting to profit off of its $1 billion acquisition. But, if Instagram goes the way of Facebook and is transmogrified from a friendly, artistic space into one that is shaped solely by the single-minded aims of Silicon Valley, I truly think that it would be a loss. I can only hope that the folks at the helm understand the reasons why Instagram is so loved right now. 

Hypertabs is The Varsity’s online features subsection about all things Internet. Our goal is to explore the depths of the online world and understand how it shapes our habits and affects our communities.

“Hey. Are you here for the Bunz trade?”

I remember saying this to the lady standing at the park gate, hoping I would get an affirmative response, thinking how stupid I would look if I didn’t. She smiled with a ‘yes’ and I proceeded to complete my first trade after making my Bunz account two years prior.

This, I soon learned, was a staple interaction in the world of Bunz. I traded a few tokens for some old 35mm rolls of film at the edge of Trinity Bellwoods Park, following the golden rule of Bunz: no money allowed.

When I first downloaded the Bunz app, I thought it was just another millennial fad to partake in — but a good one, given that I didn’t have the funds to purchase such items at full monetary value. Later, I became fortunate enough to learn about the larger implications of a secret trading economy and the impact it’s had on so many Torontonians.

Bunz, explained

Bunz is a web- and mobile-based platform where users can post a variety of their unwanted items for trade. Each profile allows the user to post items they are ‘In Search Of’ — commonly known as ‘ISO’ on the app — to inform other traders what they’re looking for. If you’re interested in an item, you send a private message the owner, and the trading conversation begins.

This platform initially began as a private Facebook group created by artist Emily Bitze, who originally named the group Bums Trading Zone. Bitze told me what her life was like around the time of the group’s initial creation, after she had moved to Toronto: “Though I was happy, I was still frustrated and broke. The cost of living was high and I could barely keep my head above water.”

“It made sense, environmentally and economically,” Bitze continued, discussing her need for the platform. Everyone she knew was struggling with money, and she saw perfectly good things being thrown away on a regular basis — a reality U of T students are not unfamiliar with.

Today, there are nearly 135,000 Bunz users, many of whom use the app for the same reason Bitze created it.

A world without money

Donna Liu, a U of T architecture undergrad and member of the original Facebook trading group, has a running list of all her trades. Among some of her highlights are hummus for a hand knitted scarf, two leftover beers for a pair of Aldo heels, and a $15 bottle of white wine for a couch.

“I think the most awarding was when I did art commissions,” Liu said. “I also got asked to do a sketch as a wedding present, pet portraits of deceased pets, [and] a poster of a loved bike.” The list goes on.

U of T Ethics, Society, and Law student Madelin Burt-D’Agnillo described a chain-trading incident to me: “one day I trade[d] a Slap Chop… then immediately traded with someone else for a Slap Chop.” Their story reminded me of a trade I once did for coffee beans, and how I traded those coffee beans for an old camera immediately after.

The resurgence of a bartering system is a symptom of the reality we are living in today, where students and working class people increasingly have more debt — and more stuff.

“Capitalism’s been ramping up for the last, whatever, probably 40 or 50 years, to the point where people have so much stuff,” said David Morton, Bunz’s Marketing Director.

[pullquote-default]This resurgence of a bartering system is a symptom of the reality we are living in today where students and working class people increasingly have more debt – and more stuff.[/pullquote-default]

Bitze says that the environmental implications are one thing she appreciates most about her work. “Knowing that we have diverted tonnes of potential items from our landfills,” is one of Bitze’s favourite experiences with Bunz.

Redesigning the brand

If you visited bunz.com last year, you would have been greeted with an image of an unimpressed blue troll asking for a password, as if it – the troll – was the only thing that would allow you to cross over into the Trading Zone. “The troll was somewhat accidental,” Bitze said, explaining that the meaning behind the troll “was in the classic sense, like a bridge troll.”

However, there were increasing concerns that the term was alienating; this was understandable given the association with what we now know as Internet trolling. The troll has now been replaced by something more friendly and inviting: “It’s a B, it’s two people together, it’s happy neighbours, and it’s cheeky,” said Bitze.

It’s two buns — or bunz, if you will.

A similar change was instituted over growing concerns surrounding the original Facebook name, Bums. After concerns were brought up that the name was insensitive, Bitze changed it to what we see today: Bunz Trading Zone.

The growth of the platform — now with 13 full-time employees — is largely due to an anonymous angel investor. However, the onset of making money from a platform which is premised on the exclusion of money is something that has generated tension for both the Bunz team and the Bunz community.

Bitze asserted that, for her team to continue the project for the community and expand further, they need the funding. And now they’re “working on something new that’s never been done before,” she told me. It’s a project to be launched by the end of this summer.

When discussing one of her favourite things about Bunz, Bitze mentioned that the support of the community has been “essential to how we’ve grown,” and how this will continue to guide future expansion.

Community

Bunz has provided an opportunity for users to experience the richness of Toronto’s people from an entirely new perspective. The platform has become an excuse to talk to random strangers you would otherwise pass by in the hustle and bustle of Yonge Street.

By taking the time to stop and talk, you can discover an obscure detail of their life, like how they’re willing to trade a contour kit for a collectible set of quarters — one of my best trades yet.

When asked what her favourite trade was, Burt-D’Agnillo replied that it was her “super old wooden desk/chair, because the person who traded with me threw in a bunch of pencils and supplies because she knows I’m a student.”

It’s these little moments of connection with and appreciation for strangers that really make Bunz such a fulfilling experience. And for some, the app holds significant meaning to their livelihood.

“So many days I want to stay in bed. Bunz trades [get] my butt out of bed and forces me to walk,” said Bunz user, kada. kada suffers from chronic pain due to an accident affecting her physical health requiring use of a cane to help her walk. She moved to Toronto to be closer to the St. Michael’s hospital and is now a regular user of the app.

Another Bunz user, bokin, reflected a similar sentiment: “I got to see a part of the city I may otherwise may have never visited.” bokin discussed one of her first trades, where both her and the other trader brought their dogs and she was introduced to the Trinity Bellwoods neighborhood. She said it was “Literally the most pleasant experience I’ve ever had with a complete stranger.”

For bokin, Bunz played a part in overcoming her crippling anxiety and depression “by giving me something to be responsible for and above all – confidence.”

Over time, Bunz became more than just an alternative to Kijiji or Craigslist. It became a platform via which Torontonians and others can interact over collective interests and struggles. The over-250 Bunz-branded Facebook groups around the world are a testament to this community-based sharing culture. U of T students are probably most familiar with the Bunz Pet Zone page for all things pet-related, the Bunz Home Zone for furniture and house supplies, and the Bunz Helping Zone page for really any and every question you have.

It was precisely this Bunz community that allowed user millie7354 to start a non-profit after-school program: “I put up a post asking for boardgame donations and got over 50 responses.”

millie7354 now has weekly after-school sessions thanks to the helping hands of Bunz users.

By talking to its users, I could see that Bunz is more than the resurgence of a bartering system; rather, it’s the resurgence of talking to your neighbours and building a grassroots community.

Social media has changed the way we deal with death and loss because individuals retain an online and digital presence, even after passing away. Social media profiles, websites, and blogs are not always taken down post-mortem, and photos and videos of the deceased continue to exist on social media forums. According to an article by The Loop,  deceased Facebook users could outnumber living users by  2065.

We remain alive in some sense — on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or on our personal or professional blogs. There are machines that keep us alive in our final moments in hospitals, and there are other machines — laptops, computers, and mobile phones, that keep us digitally  alive after that.

The way our parents and grandparents dealt with their loved ones’ deaths is so different from  the way we do. Those in the older generation have little to no access to digital profiles of the people they lost. Before social media, when somebody was dead, there were only memories and  maybe a few pictures, nothing more.  Now, a form of interaction with the deceased can and does continue online.

It’s quite unsettling that somebody could die and people could potentially continue  to visit them. This means those who have died maintain a visual, tangible presence. In addition, it has never been easier to capture and later access photos, videos, and voice recordings. Besides an online presence, we have the ability to hold onto digital memories of the deceased, and we are able to share these memories across forums.

We have an instant connection to people and events worldwide, but we are also building a legacy and memorial through our online profiles. In the past, only certain prominent people were granted legacies or memorialized, but the rise of digital technology changes that.  Sometimes we record more than the significant events of our lives, as some of us also keep track of the insignificant, trivial things — where we had dinner, what movies we watch, and  what memes made us laugh.

[pullquote-default]You no longer have to visit a cemetery or a place of worship — you can remember the deceased from right where you are. [/pullquote-default]

Social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter have different policies on memorializing people online. Facebook provides several options. It allows you to request that your account be memorialized after your death, or you can have it deleted. Nobody can log into a memorialized account, but if a legacy contact exists, they can change the profile picture, respond to friend requests, and write a pinned post on the timeline. If the deceased did not request memorialization or deactivation on Facebook, loved ones can request the deactivation of the deceased’s account.

Some people choose to share their social media account passwords with friends or relatives who continue posting even after their death, but for those who personally want to keep tweeting or posting after death, services like DeadSocial allow you to do so.

DeadSocial specializes in the digital end of life planning. A user can create messages that will be sent out on social media platforms after they die. DeadSocial is informed of a user’s death because the user can appoint one or more ‘digital executors’ that administrate messages on behalf of them once they have died.

Not only does this online legacy change the way we grieve, but it also means that the potential for learning about those who have passed exists in a different medium. Grandchildren can  learn about their grandparents through their online presence, assuming those forums still  exist. It almost feels as though we are creating some sort of digital soul, something that continues to exist after we are gone.

Part of the grieving process is moving on — not forgetting the person, but understanding that they are no longer in this state of existence with us. The ability to forget is imperative because it allows us to live in the present without the past holding us back, and the digital world makes it harder to forget. In some cases, an online presence can force us to remember the dead, which can make it harder for a grieving person to fully accept the loss and move on.

Grieving can also lose part of the physical component it used to contain. You no longer have to visit a cemetery or a place of worship — you can remember the deceased from right where you are. Old photo albums have become galleries on phones, and precious handwritten letters have turned into text messages — always available and accessible.  This draws out the grieving process, surrounds mourners with it, and makes it hard to separate grief from daily life.

Maintaining an online connection to loved ones after their death is definitely something to ruminate on further. It can greatly shift the way that individuals deal with death; the consequences of this could be comforting, or harmful to the process of mourning.

The next time you are miserable at work and want to share your unhappiness on social media, you may want to exercise some restraint. This is because an increasing number of organizations are scanning the social media presence of prospective employees, and are unlikely to hire someone who has demonized a former superior. Just one example of this is the case of an Edmonton-based Canada Post clerk, who posted inappropriate comments about the management at her workplace on Facebook and was subsequently fired.

As individuals who are soon to enter a competitive, global job market, these practices concern university students directly. The internet has become the first point of contact for students looking for internships and jobs. Websites for both major and minor organizations make information freely accessible to accommodate, or perhaps respond to, this trend.

Similarly, as noted by Forbes writer Jacquelyn Smith, the use of social media has become an indispensable part of job hunts. In fact, students can proactively pursue the job hunt by following or liking the social media pages of companies that they are interested in.

Therefore, it is imperative to understand that it is the way in which students use social media — not the medium itself — that may create professional hurdles in the future. If students post photographs of themselves indulging in various substances, make prejudiced comments on an online forum, or lie about their qualifications, they are likely to sabotage their employment prospects.

[pullquote-default]It is imperative to understand that it is the way in which students use social media — not the medium itself — that may create professional hurdles in the future.[/pullquote-default]

An example of online activity that has been popular among students and that can damage both their employment prospects and their lives, is the infamous drinking game called “Neknominate,” which has quickly become popular around the world. The game, which requires players to drink a substantial amount of alcohol and then perform a certain task, is filmed and posted on Facebook by onlookers. Consequently, it remains there for anyone to view, and becomes incriminating evidence of idiocy against those who have participated in it. While some players are ridiculed for their stupidity — such as in the case of students holding a peer upside down in order to enable him to drink from a toilet bowl — other games have ended in injury, or even death.

There is a certain degree of peer pressure involved in the online antics of student, so there is plenty that universities can do to help. First-year students, upon arriving at university, are often educated about the dangers of underage alcohol consumption and unprotected sex, and this practice can be applied to the dangers of thoughtless posting. Explaining the patterns of peer pressure that influence our online posts to students is a further, helpful step, as it discourages students from participating in highly risky and careless behaviour.

A lack of awareness of the potential consequences of online carelessness among students can also be addressed by actively sharing this information on campus. For example, colleges can encourage their career advice centres to conduct specific seminars to educate students about what is and what is not acceptable to post online.

At an individual level, students can help each other by spreading awareness about this issue among their circle of friends. Students may remove potentially controversial information from their social media profiles, while being extremely careful about the contents of future posts. This may be challenging given an emerging global culture of instant sharing and detailed, regular expression of personal beliefs, and can only be achieved through focused effort.

[pullquote-default]Colleges can encourage their career advice centres to conduct specific seminars to educate students about what is and is not acceptable to post online.[/pullquote-default]

Social media is slowly, but surely, becoming pervasive in all spheres of human interaction. Therefore, it is likely that its role in our professional lives will continue to expand. It is clear that, if not used wisely, it can harm students’ career prospects. Therefore, we must make a conscious effort to use it thoughtfully.

Sonali Gill is a third-year student at St. Michael’s College studying criminology and international relations.

In the fall, U of T will welcome hoards of eager frosh waiting for the university experience to turn their lives upside down. This summer series of personal essays delves into the minds of seasoned upper-year students, and everything they never expected to learn.

Social networks are strange. I joined them to feel more connected to people around me, but more often than not, I ended up feeling completely alone. This was especially true when I went to university.

As I saw people bantering on Twitter, I discovered that I had no one with whom I felt close enough to do that. As I saw new people tagging my old friends on Facebook, I realized that I was not making new friends as I had expected I would in university. As I tapped through Snapchat stories, it hit me that I had not updated my own story in months. As I scrolled down Instagram and saw the fun things people were doing, I felt insufficient because I had not left my room all weekend.

I spent my entire first year of university living vicariously through people on my social networks and sulking on the inside because I had made a total of only two friends, one of whom only talked to me during class.

During my last year of high school, all of my friends had applied to business or science programs at schools away from home, so they could experience the ‘independence’ that had been so lacking in high school. I had chosen writing-based programs at a school only eight minutes away from home.

[pullquote-default]I had dealt with both the good and the bad, the happy days and the hard days. And I had done it on my own.[/pullquote-default]

I consoled myself with the promise that I would make new friends. After all, change, I told myself, was the pinnacle of the university experience.

However, I forgot how shy and reserved I become when I meet new people. When September hit, I approached no one, and no one approached me. A month passed. Two months passed. Autumn faded into winter. The ground, once covered in leaves in all shades of yellow and red, became covered with an inch-tall sheet of snow.

During the week, I would go to class alone, eat lunch alone, and study alone. There were days where my only human contact outside of home was with the Tim Hortons cashier, but I was too immersed in the cycle of lecture-tutorial-assignment-quiz to worry about it.

On the weekends, though, the embarrassment of being alone ate me up. I begged my high school friends to go out, only to be met with choruses of, “I’m busy studying.” I did not want to go anywhere alone so instead, I did not go anywhere.

Two semesters passed like this, and suddenly, it was April.

On a surprisingly sunny Saturday afternoon, after I had finished the last of my first-year exams, I was lounging on my bed, my phone in hand, ready to double tap pictures of other people having fun and then brood about them afterwards. Scrolling down my Instagram feed, I was bombarded with various group pictures whose captions ran along the lines of: “First year would have been different without you,” and “Couldn’t have survived first year without these people!”

My first instinct was to search my gallery and post a picture with a caption echoing these sentiments, to show that I had also found great friends who had gotten me through first year. Until I realized that this was not true at all. No one had gotten me through my first year except myself.

I had gone to all my classes, done my readings, turned in all of my assignments and packed my own lunch. I had only cried twice, no matter how hopeless my situation had felt. I did not get angry at my friends for cancelling almost all our plans and I did not complain to my parents so that they would not worry. I had dealt with both the good and the bad, the happy days and the hard days. And I had done it on my own.

Although company is nice, I realized that I really did not need someone to share every single experience with me. I would have to spend the rest of my life with myself, so it was worthwhile to get to know me — to be comfortable with myself.

This summer, I set out to do exactly what I wanted to do, alone and unencumbered by other people. I visited bakeries by myself, went shopping solo. I even had dinner with myself.

“Table for two?” the host asked me.

“No, just me,” I replied with a smile.

When exploring the murky waters of social media, students are often unsure about how to handle acts of cyber aggression. In response to this problem, the University of Toronto has hired Faye Mishna, dean of the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, as the provostial advisor on aggression in social media.

Working with members of the U of T community, Mishna will develop strategies to educate students about the challenges with expressing aggression on social media. She hopes to take the benefits and risks of social media usage into account and advise the provost on how to foster an environment which would lend itself to positive social media.

Mishna cited the “power to demean” as one of the key factors in online aggression.

“[When you’re online] you don’t see the person you’re speaking to, there are no social or physical cues. [You don’t see their] face, [or their] body flinch,” said Mishna. “Some people, who can’t say things in person, say it online and that is problematic. [They say] things they wouldn’t otherwise in person… but it might be too much.”

According to Mishna, the challenge with social media is “how to respond [in a way that is] helpful and not punitive.” Mishna wants to promote positive use and teach how to respond without being reactive. “[Social media is] not problem based; it is part of the world right now. Whether it’s online or offline it’s about people relating. We need to have codes of conduct, respectable ways of dealing with conflicts, points of differences and have consequences.”

So far 5,000 U of T students have been surveyed about their experiences with cyber aggression, most of whom were undergraduate students. Next month another 1,000 surveys will be distributed to graduate students.

Mishna also wants to conduct focus groups for student feedback at all years of post-secondary education in order to “figure out the best way to provide education.” At this point she is focusing on students but hopes to eventually interview faculty, as “everybody is effected.”

“[U of T] is a huge [school] with three campuses, [with a] range in diversity with students, faculty and staff,” said Mishna. “Social media is a new world and so challenging generally [because it is] easy to get misused.”

When asked about the importance of the issue Mishna said that all universities need to deal with aggression on social media. She added that, instead of implementing policies, students and faculty at universities should be preventative rather than reactive in their actions on social media.

“People are on social media, it’s a new world and we don’t know all the consequences, it affects us good and bad and everyone needs to be aware of this.”

For now, Mishna wants students to keep their guards up when it comes to positing on social media.  “If you’re posting about [yourself], anybody can see it and anybody can post it. [You make yourself] vulnerable. When you post about others, anybody can see it, there is no privacy. When there is no one in front of it, you think it’s just a device a computer, a smartphone, there is a person behind it. It comes down to the relationships.”