Incivility Research Paper

Incivility has always been a huge issue in society. Over the years it has only gotten much worse and sky rocketed. There are many people who believe that more needs to be done about it while others simply do not even care about this serious issue. It has gotten so out of hand that it has become difficult for people to control it. Incivility in popular culture has increased rapidly due to the influence of social media sites.

Twitter is a very popular site and millions of people use it every day. Incivility is often seen on this site on a daily basis. Twitter has over three hundred million users and it is difficult to keep track of all of the “trolls” on their site. Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo even talked about the matter in a very blunt way, "We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years, it's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day." Twitter is finally facing up to the problem and its CEO had this to say to the employees, "We're going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them." It is a very risky and bold move for the company because they could potentially lose up to half of their users. Twitter is focused on helping out the people being affected by this incivility and has more concern over them then themselves.

Incivility on social media has gotten so increasingly bad that cyber bullies are finding it easier to harass people. 77% of students have been bullied and only 35% reported it to their parents. “Perhaps cyber bullying through various social media outlets is on the rise because we are a civilization dependent on the ease of this form of communication. It’s easy to hide behind a laptop and post hurtful comments (Qualman 1). Social media is taking a stand and fighting back.

Incivility has gotten so bad that it has spread to schools. There have been a rising amount of students who have acted out in class. The students have acted in a nasty manner towards their teacher because they don’t want to put their cell phone away or whatever else they are doing. Some of these students have even gotten to the point of being aggressive and even walking out of class. They don’t respect the teacher and just do not care about the consequences of their hastily actions. There are several theories as to why campuses have become increasingly uncivil. Some blame the freewheeling media environment, including television, radio, and the Web, where obscenities and insults are popular forms of communication. Others believe that younger people have been raised without a sense of manners and common courtesy. “Psychologists say that uncivil behavior also might be caused by an underlying need for attention (Gilroy 1).” Colleges are working to do something about it and are establishing codes of conduct to control this. Although it has not worked out the way it intended to, many students are causing an uproar about it and lashing out saying that their freedom of speech is being infringed upon. Janet Hubbs, a campus civility team member said that, “Countering uncivil behavior with equally uncivil behavior is inflammatory and will have very predictable negative consequences.” She said instead of taking drastic measures to stop it that we must just set some guidelines for people to follow and not enforce it so it makes people have to follow it. Schools are doing the best they can to stop incivility but there is only so much that they are able to do.

The workplace is somewhere that many might not think incivility on social media spreads to but it does. In 2012 there was a survey done about incivility in the workplace and nearly one third experiences it. The survey also said that 23% quit their job because of it, 63% believe incivility is a huge issue in this country, 71% believe civility has declined in recent years and 55% expect that incivility is only going to continue to get worse. Bradley Honan, CEO of KRC Research laid out a plan that he says workplaces should follow to combat incivility. He says that they should do off-site retreats, training and role modeling. He says that this would help prevent incivility in the workplace. “Workplace incivility is a vicious cycle that is hard to stop, but no one benefits from incivility in the long term. Combating it is something everyone needs to participate in if there is to be any hope for changing this trend (Dr. Woody).” People in the workplace need to establish more civility so that their production at work is not affected.