Kate Anthony

OTI Europe Ltd | Consultancy, Personal Training and Research for Online Therapeutic Services

   

Trolls .v. Abusers – Let’s Clarify a Bit

by

I’ve posted about trolling before when I returned from a conference – and feel inspired to do so again having returned from another!  I went to a colleague’s workshop on CyberTrauma recently, and spent a very enjoyable day with counsellors, teachers, and other people with an interest in e-safety when it comes to working with children.  One of the most interesting debates was around trolling, and how this can be misunderstood in the context of the Internet as a result of media attention that aims to highlight the negative behaviours online that we encounter.

Here’s how I see it: it’s all down to the intention of the poster.

Cyberbullying is not trolling. Nor are flames or flamewars. Nor is downright online abuse of another human being or beings online when done anonymously through a public forum such as Twitter.  I do feel that the recent legal moves towards prosecution of those who engage in online abuse is a good thing, as I do feel that this addresses the incongruent gap between what is “real” abuse and what is “unreal” (as in: “it’s virtual so it doesn’t exist” – a phrase that has haunted my career when looking at the validity of online relationships, and which inspired one of my favourite self-penned articles back in 2001).

But trolling itself need not be abusive. It certainly can be irritating, frustrating, annoying, and create hours of time spent moderating forum posts, tweets, and blog comments when time could be better spent on something else. And it is true to say that it can often be abusive in nature and appear insulting (at best). But while trolling can be abusive, that does not mean that that is the central aim of trolling behaviour. The central aim of trolling is to lead the audience away from the intention of the initial poster.  It’s a smoke and mirrors exercise to draw attention to a new topic – one that is seemingly related but in effect creates a different conversation, ensuring the original point-of-vibluehaired_trollew is lost.  Take away the insults, threats, verbal abuse and (usually) bad spelling/use of caps and what you can see is an artform.  Done well, trolling is actually quite clever.  And a lot of the time, it’s actually quite funny (remember Rickrolling? That’s a classic example of trolling).

There are plenty of lists of the top examples of trolling over the last 25 years online, and plenty of articles discussing it (here’s a good simple one from Urban75).  I’m finding that within my work conversations it’s getting increasingly hard to distinguish between good old trolling and internet abuse, and that makes life difficult when training and offering informed opinion about how society could or should treats trolls, particularly within the field of mental health.

In the past few years the phrase “don’t feed the trolls” became a meme in itself – and when re-dressed as “don’t feed the online abusers” it makes perfect sense (although that attitude has changed in light of online abuse being (rightly) taken as a criminal matter rather than simply an annoyance).

But let’s be clearer in our definitions of what is trolling and what is online abuse – it’s going to make addressing mental health issues caused or exacerbated by types of online behaviour WAY easier.

🙂

Fostering the Spark – How Our Students Become Pioneers

by

Flash

One of the most enjoyable aspects of tutoring our courses are the live “vivas” – a chance for DeeAnna and I to talk individually to each of our students.  These talks, held over the telephone, through a videolink, or in a chat room, take place twice during our larger trainings – once at the end of the Foundational Course in CyberCulture and then again on completion of the written work in the Specialist Certificate portion.

We used to call them “oral examinations”, but that seemed very formal for what is essentially a check-in to ensure the learning is being taken on board, to clear up any misunderstandings about the work, and to clarify any parts that may be unclear or need further unpicking.  It is also a chance for us to exemplify our message that communication is at the heart of all we do – whether in a learning environment or working with the clients we serve. To truly model our belief that communication is communication whatever technology we use (including those chairs Douglas Adams talked about), moving away from the written feedback we give at the end of every lesson towards the live conversation and back again allows the concept of the importance of blending technologies to emerge.

But what I really love about these conversations is hearing how the learning is being applied to each student’s work environment – whether a therapist, coach, support worker or other human wellbeing professional.  This gives us a chance to drill down into how the student can take the learning forward, not only for their own ongoing development but for the good of the clients and the wider profession.  I can get flavours of this through our ongoing written dialogue throughout the course, where the ideas the student has take hold and start blossoming – but it is the live conversation that allows not just the brainstorming part between two people, but also the infectious enthusiasm we both get as those ideas start to be fleshed out. There is nothing more satisfying than to hear the course content come to life when the student finds their niche – recent examples have been around how to reach and serve the suicidal client better, the use of blogging for co-education for senior Supervisors, the creation of a virtual gallery for those interested in showcasing art therapy techniques, and how best to de-stigmatise mental health services for children and young people.

The students on our courses are the pioneers of the profession.  Sure, we give them the tools to work effectively and ethically online, and I honestly applaud any practitioner who seeks the training so necessary to do so (whether they are trained with us and the Online Therapy Institute or not).

But it is hearing the spark igniting the fuse towards meaningful ground breaking online work as each student applies the technology that makes my day during these vivas. Fostering that spark and helping to turn it into a realistically better way to be present for our colleagues and clients in any therapeutic field is intensely satisfying for us as tutors and mentors. It’s simply a privilege to see how our courses can startle a new thought into action for each and every student who joins us.

🙂

 

Gaming online – when does it turn into a diagnosable psychiatric disorder?

by

I have a special interest in this field, not only as part of my work in general but as an avid gamer myself.  With the exception of World of Warcraft (more on that later), I’ve pretty much run the gamut of gaming, from the Atari’s Pacman and Space Invader games back in the 70s right through the Legend of Zelda suite to the current rash of mobile and Facebook time-sucks (I use that term fondly) such as Bubble Witch Saga 2 and Candy Crush.

And I can truthfully say that Level 500 of CCS sucks:

cc

Recently a group of researchers tackled the controversial fact that the DSM-V includes non-substance addiction as a psychiatric diagnosis, in the journal Addiction.  This is a very welcome paper, not least because the DSM-V has pretty much sidelined the concept of general Internet addiction in favour of the specific behaviours conducted over the Internet. This has wide implications for various online addictions, including gambling, sex and virtual reality environments.

I found the recent showing in the UK of Web Junkie riveting – of course I was aware of the gaming boot camps in China, but watching the participants discuss their use of nappies to ensure they didn’t miss a minute of the game for their hygienic needs really brought home the huge problems gaming can cause.  These boot camps cost twice the parent’s average monthly income to attend – it is apparently never voluntary and often involves subterfuge to get the young people there in the first place.  Indeed, when a group of the boot camp members “escaped”, they headed straight for the nearest Internet Cafe to play for four hours before being “caught”.  Many cite combating loneliness as one of the main attractions.

I took one look at the game World of Warcraft when at a friend’s house, and vowed never to touch it.  The appeal of those beautiful graphics, the team-playing, the role-playing, the social side of like-minded people banding together to defeat obstacles and missions…  what’s not to like if you are an avid gamer?  My gaming colleagues and friends (you know who you are) have tempted me over the years – but WoW is a time-suck too far for someone who already has mild(ish) issues with online gaming.  I have almost (almost) sacrosanct boundaries in place for my gaming habit, playing only three in any one period (currently Bubble Witch Saga 2, Diamond Diggers Saga and the epic Tribez and Castlez, since you didn’t ask). These boundaries are necessary for reasons of both time (addiction/avoidance) and finance (in-gaming purchases to facilitate the addiction) – my time on Candy Crush Saga and Kitchen Scramble meant I eventually had to block them from all my devices (though if you’re ever stuck on a level, give me a shout 😉 )

There are complicated reasons for all addictions, and those within online gaming should not be ignored.  My current work is focusing on the innocent use of gaming to combat other addictions, not least gambling -after all, it’s only virtual money, right?  Wrong – my anecdotal research with gamblers show that online freemium play models are triggers, and a short step to being back in the offline casino or similar.  The DSM-V inclusion is welcome if only to bring the topic to the fore and allow academics to reach conclusions around potential treatment.

But let’s not forget the inclusion of the excellent concept of gamification in therapy!  For further reading, I’ll refer you to my colleague Mike at GamerTherapist.com – the guru of gamer affirmative psychotherapy.  Check out his blog to understand the positives gaming can bring to life experience – and happy (boundaried) gaming!

🙂

Being Virtually Homeless

by

Avatars and virtual environments have been on my mind a lot lately: we recently relaunched our Avatar Identity Specialist Certificate; I finally got around to finishing the book Infinite Reality; and a recent question to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy on the topic from a colleague led to the organisation making it their research enquiry of the month.  This allowed me to revisit my own writings on the subject, and reflect on past experiences that feed into my thirst for understanding how different technologies fit into the lives of others.

On Sunday of this week, it was my absolute pleasure to join DeeAnna in a shop in Second Life (SL) to choose our new virtual office furniture.  Since our previous SL landlady moved on to other projects and closed her Snapshot shopping_001beautiful island, we have been virtually homeless for around six months, both of us feeling out-of-sorts and ungrounded within an important part of our work – the virtual world.  If you have ever been homeless, as I have, you will know exactly what I mean. And if you haven’t, I promise you it’s not exactly a bundle of fun emotionally (quite apart from practically, of course).

To borrow the name of one of my favourite bands, it makes one feel “uncluded”.  I’m not going to exaggerate my experience – it was temporary, during the summer, and mercifully only for a matter of a few weeks – but it certainly gave me an outlook on life that enabled me to understand why people seek communities and environments created by those on the outside of mainstream society.  And what technology has enabled us to do, at least in the developed world, is to seek those out and be part of them virtually.

In our search for a new island in Second Life, I looked at spaces next to graffiti-covered biker bars, got thrown out and banned from a house of a, ummm, shall we say a “private” nature, and gatecrashed a virtual wedding.  I fell into virtual fountain and virtually almost drowned. I met an aardvark who then googled my avatar name and emailed me for therapy. I went to virtual Paris and bought a virtual croissant from a virtual vendor who bizarrely only spoke Spanish. These were interesting experiences, but none of them made me feel included.

So we turned to our dear colleague Gentle Heron, who runs Virtual Ability Island and who had available land for rent – you may remember her from the documentary film Login 2 Life and the feature she wrote for us for TILT Magazine.  We now have space in SL which could have been made for us – a therapeutic community, with a conference centre and cafe for our students to hang out in (office-warming party coming soon!), and a beautiful building with roof garden, library, therapy room, Reiki centre, and TILT’s headquarters .  It’s a work in progress as DeeAnna and I find time to shop together inworld from our offline offices either side of the Atlantic  – but it gets more like our virtual home every day.

I am very used to the odd looks I get when trying to describe the virtual living so many people partake in – it’s why we ask the majority of our students to experience it for themselves as part of their Foundational Course in Cyberculture.  We don’t need to have the same experiences as clients to empathise with them, but we do need to understand how they live.  If the community of the virtual world is where they feel included – rather than uncluded – then who are we to dismiss that as being unreal?

🙂