Natural History Model

In order to fully understand the social problem of cyber bullying, it is important to be able to understand the natural history behind it. Most social problems go through what is called a natural history, which consists of several stages in their development. The first stage is claimsmaking. This is the only part of the natural history model that all social problems have in common. Claimsmaking is where people make claims that there is a social problem, with certain characteristics, causes, and solutions. Stage two is media coverage. This is where the media reports on claimsmakers so that news of the claims reaches a broader audience, including the news, radio, social media, etc. Public reaction is the third stage in the natural history model.

However, it is not as simple as it seems. The natural history model has many limitations. It oversimplifies the process by implying that the influence is unidirectional, which ignores the role of feedback. Another limitation of the natural history model would be that actors at different stages are not limited to interacting with actors in the next stage. Interactions also occur within each stage. A more accurate way to view the natural history model would be to visualize a never-ending cycle between each stage along with web-like interactions between every other stage. For example, claimsmaking can be a result of news broadcast or media coverage can be a result of public reaction. Looking at the natural history model this way shows how complex social problems are and that it is not necessarily a unidirectional

Since this article was written, social media and social networking sites have become even more engrained into preadolescents and adolescents everyday lives. Now, about 22% of teenagers log on to their favorite social media sites more than ten times a day, 75% of teenagers own cell phones, and 25% of which use them for social media (O’Keeffe 2011). Luxton also notes that middle school children who were victims of cyberbullying were almost two times as likely to attempt suicide than those who were not. This proves how impactful social media can be on our youth. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death for people ranging 10 to 24 years of age (Crossland 2015). Social media is highly praised in society; many people fail to see the negative effects they play on our youth. The recent increase in highly publicized cases of adolescent suicides involving social media has drawn national attention to the topic (Luxton 2012). Cyber bullying was then brought to the attention of claimsmakers as being a leading cause to these suicides, which lead to claimsmakers deciding to speak up about this troubling condition. As a result, this has brought much-needed media attention to the troubling condition we know as cyber