Roots of Trauma What social media tell us about trauma and loss among youth in urban settings Desmond Upton Patton, PhD, MSW Assistant Professor, Columbia School of Social Work John Jay Symposium Wednesday October 11, 2016

“The popularity of social media has created a new context for violence and trauma that is grossly understudied and used in trauma practice.” 93% of teens use the Internet. 55% of online teens have created a social networking profile on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. (Pew Internet Study)

Young people: Virtual Community Physical Community Context Collapse Concentrated Poverty Diminished Economic Opportunities Virtual Community Physical Community Family/Community Disruption Death and Loss of Close Friends and Family Poor Schools and Social Services Context Collapse

Gakirah Barnes “Young Killa” “Lil Snoop”

Case Study Gakirah Barnes @TyquanAssassin Deceased gang member killed in April 2014 Allegedly killed up to 9 individuals by the time she was 17 27,000 tweets from December 2011 to April 11, 2014 ~ 4,200 followers on Twitter

Internet Banging

Collaboration Social Work Data Science Substantive Knowledge of Trauma, Risk, Protective Factors, and Community Development Natural Language Processing Tool Development Computational Linguistics Expertise Experience with Youth Understanding of Social Relationships (Gangs) Big Data Knowledge and Inquiry

Interdisciplinary Research Community Social Work Data Science Research Assistants (Young men from Chicago neighborhoods with high rates of violence) Social Work Professors Masters-Level Social Work Students Data Scientists Undergraduate Data Science Students

Predicting Aggression and Grief

Key Findings Social Media can be used to taunt rival gangs, brag about violence, and make direct/indirect threats to groups of individuals Expressions of grief and trauma contribute to escalating aggressive language on social media Language on social media is often misinterpreted and difficult to understand

Challenges with Analyzing Data Authors of the tweets use African American English, whose grammar differs in some respects from that of Standard American English Language of Chicago gangs has convention and vocabulary Tweets involve emojis, hashtags, URLs, and non-conventional spelling

Next Steps Alert community outreach groups when aggressive tweets are identified for intervention purposes to alleviate a potentially violent situation. Enabling interventions when young people are traumatized before grief turns to retribution.

What does this mean for the Justice Community? Privacy and Fairness Concerns about Social Media Policing How do we leverage community strengths and promote positive social media behaviors among youth?

Questions?