Changing Face of Bullying

Who, how, and what is a bully today?
Rahman Mohamed

When you think of a bully the first image that often comes to mind is the school bully, the biggest boy in the school yard who’s holding up the little guy’s collar and demanding lunch money.  There’s more to bullying than the big boy.

A bully is a blustering, browbeating person, especially one who is habitually cruel, insulting, or threatening to others who are weaker, smaller.  Whether it’s the stereotypical schoolyard boy or the mean boss who makes others work over time, traditionally it refers to a single individual who makes life harder for others.  Today bullying is categorized in multiple forms.  The bully can be an individual or a group that makes life hard for someone or a group, the victim.

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Canadians: Spreading Love and Knowledge Across Social Media

Canadian Hashtags
Rahman Mohamed

In their sesquicentennial Canucks are working to show the world what they are.  As a multicultural society Canadians are diverse.  Although there are persons of different backgrounds and heritages they acknowledge a common identity: Canadian.  Whether the Canuck (a Canadian not the Vancouver NHL team) is telling the world who it is or trying to learn more about the one who chose to live in the eternal Winter, messages are being spread across social media. Continue reading

The Hashtag Effect

The influence of Twitter Hashtags
Rahman Mohamed
Updated 1 February 2017

Social media has been changing the world.  Today people are more interconnected than ever before; more than one person from Greenland can discuss food or politics with users in South Africa and India on Twitter; without leaving their home, seeing each others faces or even knowing their real name they know what’s happening in each others’ life.  Today a man from America can share photos with a lady from China on Facebook.  Eventually they may meet, fall in love, and marry.

Leaders of the world have recognized this.  Political and world leaders are using Twitter, interacting with each other and their Followers more than ever before.  In the 2015 Canadian Federal Election Social Media was used by political leaders and parties to reach Canadians across the Great White North.

Earlier this year, February 12, Bloomberg reported that Facebook has higher earning, users, and is used more frequently than Twitter.  On the other hand Twitter is used more often by urban and higher educated users.  It’s also used more than Facebook to stay in touch with the world.  More recently social movements have taken to social media using Hashtags – words or a phrase with “#” in front.  If you click on a hashtag you see all the public Tweets that have used it, Tweets that have included the hashtag.

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