Ghosting? Orbiting? Submarining? A social media literacy lesson that should be taught in schools but isn’t.
By Beatrix Battelle
Everyone should be entitled to communicate online and offline in whatever way makes them feel secure and safe, but the reality of social pressure and norms often presents conflicts. As a society, it’s not in our best interest to leave social media literacy to chance — crossing our fingers, hoping each kid “figures it out” during the most pivotal and tumultuous period of their childhood. Schools should teach literacy on social media platforms, just as they teach literacy in math and reading.
Snapchat has been my generation’s primary medium of communication since the app first took off in 2011 — when I was barely 12. Like most tweens, I worried about falling victim to one of the many possible consequences of social media, and I meticulously studied its complexities. My peers and I obsessed over which acronyms were trendy and if a hashtag was dorky. We knew how to maintain streaks — a game-like feature that encourages daily interaction — and assembled our ideal “best-friends” list. We perfected our angles, arching our backs, pursing our lips, adjusting the lighting, and applying aesthetic filters to our faces or surroundings. We curated witty titles for our private stories and rose-colored content for our viewers.
Apps like Snapchat challenge our perception of the physical reality around us, and if we don’t address this in our classrooms, our youth’s mental health will continue to decline. One of Snapchat’s defining characteristics is its “Snap Maps” feature, which shares your live location with all of your Snap friends. You can adjust the setting to “Ghost Mode” so your location is hidden, but Snap Maps is critical to Snap’s interactive features — and to the social norms that have grown around the platform. According to researchers, link? adolescents primarily use social media because they yearn for recognition through self-presentation and the need to belong. And for many, Snap is how they belong — and how they understand social connections. Perhaps your friend Sara told you she was going to her boyfriend’s house, but Snap Maps tells you she’s with your frenemy. Or maybe a boy you like has been active on Snap, but then Snap tells you he hasn’t opened the selfie you worked so hard to perfect — and it turns out he’s at another girl’s volleyball practice. Knowing others’ whereabouts is so addictive that Snapchat even has an option to purchase a premium subscription, enabling access to all of the places your friends visited in the past 24 hours, which is just as creepy as it sounds.
By the time I started high school, Snapchat’s culture had already manifested itself in the student body’s conversation, resulting in the normalization of some entirely new communication habits — replete with a strange new vocabulary:
Ghosting happens when one person abruptly stops any form of communication, seemingly without reason.
Haunting occurs when the ghoster pops up in the ghostee’s metaverse before a month post-ghost. For example, if a ghoster vaguely reacts on different forms of social media such as Instagram or BeReal, they are haunting.
Submarining is the ancestor of ghosting. It resembles haunting, but instead of subtle reactions to other forms of media, the ghoster completely resurfaces into one’s life, like a submarine. An example may be a ghoster texting a ghostee as if nothing had happened.
Zombieing is when a ghoster pops back into their ghostee’s life months or years after ghosting. They may try to convince you they didn’t mean to ghost or act oblivious.
Orbiting defines those users who lurk online, follow your life updates over social media, or are always the first to view your story — yet never interact.
Breadcrumbing is the act of leaving behind proverbial breadcrumbs (texts, snaps, likes) that may lead someone on. Breadcrumbers engage enough to keep their target interested, but the relationship typically goes nowhere.
Taken together, platforms like Snap, Insta, and others allow for new social behaviors that could lead to dangerous situations. During my first summer living in New York City, I noticed that a boy had sent me an excessive amount of Snaps on Snapchat. I vaguely recalled his username, looked him up on Instagram, and realized he was a boy I somewhat knew from California. We can call him Bobby, and he was a few years older than me. Bobby had gone to my primary and middle school — I had known him through mutual friends. We had locked eyes once or twice as we rushed by each other on our way to class, and I’ll admit, I remember breadcrumbing him from time to time.
In any case, I had no intention of seeing him. I checked my Snap Map to make sure my “ghost mode” was on and half-swiped into our conversation to read the message without actually “reading” (enabling read receipts). But then, the next day, he snapped me: “Hey, how have you been? It’s been a while.” And the day after: “I’m on my way to the city. ;) Don’t you want to see me? Turn your SnapMaps on.” Ewww. I instantaneously knew that I would leave him on “delivered” indefinitely.
At the time, I was taking summer courses at Columbia University. It was lunch, and I was walking to a restaurant with classmates. “You guys,” I turned to my friends, “how weird is this.” I half-swiped Bobby’s text to show them. As they gathered around and chattered in agreement, we watched as his bitmoji popped into the chat. The shock made my finger slip, and now he could see that I had read his messages and was in our shared chat. I was (virtually) face to face with him. I scribed “I’m in class,” aggressively hit enter, and swiftly swiped out. As we sat for lunch, I received a swell of snaps from Bobby. Ignoring the notifications, my eyes wandered outside the window.
Bobby had entirely slipped my mind until I noticed a tall dude with curly hair walk across the street and onto campus. It was Bobby. I pointed him out to my friends, incredulous: “How would he know where I am? I haven’t shared any pictures of Columbia.” I went to my Instagram, which has no posts. I proceeded to my tagged section — and there it was: one of my friends had tagged me in a photo of us at Columbia. That’s all my new stalker needed to find me.
Ironically, I avoided an unwanted encounter by stalking Bobby’s location on Snap Maps and taking the scenic route back to class, but this could happen to anyone. I did not handle it perfectly, but I managed to prevent the conflict from escalating into something dangerous. Before I even had a chance to block him, Bobby informed me that he “bought a hotel room for us.”
Social media has so much power and potential for positive change. Youth use media to identify and express themselves. However, navigating the vast landscape of social media is a developed skill that requires trial and tribulations. Social media is not instinctual but it is inextricable from the webs society has weaved, so we must embrace it and learn how to appropriately adjust. School is the place where we teach our children how to survive, adapt, and thrive in this world. It’s time we taught them those skills for the “metaverse” as well.
t’s no secret that teens have a complicated relationship with social media. While academics and pundits debate the medium’s impact on our generation, the truth for us is clear: Social media can be devastating, but only if we fail to take control of it.
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Beatrix Battelle is a student at Northeastern University and works with The Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Snapchat has been my generation’s primary medium of communication since the app first took off in 2011 — when I was barely 12.
I proceeded to my tagged section — and there it was: one of my friends had tagged me in a photo of us at Columbia. That’s all my new stalker needed to find me.
DISCORD
Instant messaging platform. Enables private messaging and participation in communities, called “servers.” Launched in 2015, Discord had over 350 million registered users in 2021.
SNAPCHAT
Released in 2011, Snapchat had 293 million daily active users in 2021. Users share temporarily available photos and other media; a map function allows user tracking.
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Editor's note: The Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's Hospital receives financial support from Meta and TikTok
Editor's note: The Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's Hospital receives financial support from Meta and TikTok
Editor's note: The Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's Hospital receives financial support from Meta and TikTok