2. 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

3. “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)

4. 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

5. Gakirah Barnes
“Young Killa”
“Lil Snoop”

6. 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

7. Internet Banging

8. 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

9. 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

10. Predicting Aggression and Grief

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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.

14. 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?

15. Questions?