[W10] The "Snowflake" Smokescreen: How the Label Silences the Reality of Online Harassment
Especially in the UK, some folks in politics and the media are calling young people, especially college students, the "snowflake generation." Basically, it's a way of saying they think young people are way too sensitive and get offended super easily.
There is this big study in 2021 with 810 students at a UK university (Haslop et al., 2021). Turns out, online harassment is super common–students see it as just a normal part of being online. And get this: they're more likely to put up with it than do anything about it, which is the opposite of being all sensitive and whiny, right?
The study also found that women and transgender students get hit with this online harassment way more often (Haslop et al., 2021). So, while some people are busy calling young people "snowflakes," these students are dealing with some serious crap online.
This whole "snowflake" label is doing a lot of damage (Haslop et al., 2021). It's basically taking the attention away from what's really going on, which is that online harassment is a huge problem, and it's affecting people's lives, especially women and transgender people. It's not just about being "too sensitive"; it's about dealing with actual abuse.
Think about it: if every time a young person speaks up about something messed up they saw online, they get called a "snowflake," are they going to keep speaking up? Probably not. That's how this label silences people. It stops them from talking about the real issues, because they don't want to be seen as some oversensitive crybaby.
Basically, this "snowflake" thing is a smokescreen. It hides the fact that online harassment is creating a real divide, where some people feel like they can't even participate online.
References
Haslop, C., O’Rourke, F., & Southern, R. (2021). #NoSnowflakes: The toleration of harassment and an emergent gender-related digital divide, in a UK student online culture. Convergence, 27(5), 1418–1438.
