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Using social media data for assessing children’s exposure to violence during the COVID-19 pandemic
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic brought unforeseen challenges that could forever change the way societies prioritize and deal with public health issues. The approaches to contain the spread of the virus have entailed governments issuing recommendations on social distancing, lockdowns to restrict m...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7498240/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33358281 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104747 |
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author | Babvey, Pouria Capela, Fernanda Cappa, Claudia Lipizzi, Carlo Petrowski, Nicole Ramirez-Marquez, Jose |
author_facet | Babvey, Pouria Capela, Fernanda Cappa, Claudia Lipizzi, Carlo Petrowski, Nicole Ramirez-Marquez, Jose |
author_sort | Babvey, Pouria |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic brought unforeseen challenges that could forever change the way societies prioritize and deal with public health issues. The approaches to contain the spread of the virus have entailed governments issuing recommendations on social distancing, lockdowns to restrict movements, and suspension of services. OBJECTIVE: There are concerns that the COVID-19 crisis and the measures adopted by countries in response to the pandemic may have led to an upsurge in violence against children. Added stressors placed on caregivers, economic uncertainty, job loss or disruption to livelihoods and social isolation may have led to a rise in children’s experience of violence in the home. Extended online presence by children may have resulted in increased exposure to abusive content and cyberbullying. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: This study uses testimonial-based and conversational-based data collected from social media users. METHODS: Conversations on Twitter were reviewed to measure increases in abusive or hateful content, and cyberbullying, while testimonials from Reddit forums were examined to monitor changes in references to family violence before and after the start of the stay-at-home restrictions. RESULTS: Violence-related subreddits were among the topics with the highest growth after the COVID-19 outbreak. The analysis of Twitter data shows a significant increase in abusive content generated during the stay-at-home restrictions. CONCLUSIONS: The collective experience of the COVID-19 pandemic and related containment measures offers insights into the wide-ranging risks that children are exposed to in times of crisis. As societies shift towards a new normal, which places emerging technology, remote working and online learning at its center, and in anticipation of similar future threats, governments and other stakeholders need to put in place measures to protect children from violence. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7498240 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-74982402020-09-18 Using social media data for assessing children’s exposure to violence during the COVID-19 pandemic Babvey, Pouria Capela, Fernanda Cappa, Claudia Lipizzi, Carlo Petrowski, Nicole Ramirez-Marquez, Jose Child Abuse Negl Article BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic brought unforeseen challenges that could forever change the way societies prioritize and deal with public health issues. The approaches to contain the spread of the virus have entailed governments issuing recommendations on social distancing, lockdowns to restrict movements, and suspension of services. OBJECTIVE: There are concerns that the COVID-19 crisis and the measures adopted by countries in response to the pandemic may have led to an upsurge in violence against children. Added stressors placed on caregivers, economic uncertainty, job loss or disruption to livelihoods and social isolation may have led to a rise in children’s experience of violence in the home. Extended online presence by children may have resulted in increased exposure to abusive content and cyberbullying. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: This study uses testimonial-based and conversational-based data collected from social media users. METHODS: Conversations on Twitter were reviewed to measure increases in abusive or hateful content, and cyberbullying, while testimonials from Reddit forums were examined to monitor changes in references to family violence before and after the start of the stay-at-home restrictions. RESULTS: Violence-related subreddits were among the topics with the highest growth after the COVID-19 outbreak. The analysis of Twitter data shows a significant increase in abusive content generated during the stay-at-home restrictions. CONCLUSIONS: The collective experience of the COVID-19 pandemic and related containment measures offers insights into the wide-ranging risks that children are exposed to in times of crisis. As societies shift towards a new normal, which places emerging technology, remote working and online learning at its center, and in anticipation of similar future threats, governments and other stakeholders need to put in place measures to protect children from violence. The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2021-06 2020-09-17 /pmc/articles/PMC7498240/ /pubmed/33358281 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104747 Text en © 2020 The Authors Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Article Babvey, Pouria Capela, Fernanda Cappa, Claudia Lipizzi, Carlo Petrowski, Nicole Ramirez-Marquez, Jose Using social media data for assessing children’s exposure to violence during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title | Using social media data for assessing children’s exposure to violence during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_full | Using social media data for assessing children’s exposure to violence during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_fullStr | Using social media data for assessing children’s exposure to violence during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_full_unstemmed | Using social media data for assessing children’s exposure to violence during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_short | Using social media data for assessing children’s exposure to violence during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_sort | using social media data for assessing children’s exposure to violence during the covid-19 pandemic |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7498240/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33358281 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104747 |
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