1 in 4 Women Experience Sexual Assault During Their Undergraduate Careers: Here's How We Change That

I would begin my blog post by including the US Department of Justices' definition of sexual assault that can be found here. Then, I will discuss data presented in this New York Times article such as, but not limited to, how new studies conducted at Ivy League Universities have revealed that more than 1 in 4 undergraduate women admit to being sexually assaulted, and transgender students had higher rates of assault than students who identify as women. I will also discuss how 3/4 victims don't report that they've been assaulted because they feel as though it wasn't "serious" enough (mostly because they don't know exactly what sexual assault is), or they feel that their claims won't be taken seriously by counselors or authorities.

How One Columbia Student Who Earned The Name of "Mattress Girl"

Here I will introduce Columbia student Emma Sulkowicz, (with information from this article) who taught me as well as most of America that sexual assaults are not being handled on campus properly by carrying her mattress around campus, and eventually graduation. I will tell her story; why the mattress was being carried around (the University neglected to take action after she reported being raped even though she knew the man who raped her, and apparently has raped two other females and been found guilty), why she carried it around for so long (refused to stop carrying it around until the person who assaulted her was no longer attending the University). I'll mention how this brought a new light to sexual assault, and opened a lot of eyes. 

Sexual Assault On College Campuses Is Finally Getting The Attention It Deserves From The Government

These eyes being the White House--I would introduce the Not Alone initiative, organized by the White House Task Force to protect students from sexual assault. Their plan includes, but is not limited to, how the government is asking for surveys from every university to scope the severity of the issue at hand, preventative measures for sexual assault as well as how to involve men, how to train counselors/authorities at school on effectively responding to sexual assault reports (new confidentiality components, new sexual assault misconduct policies, newer and better disciplinary systems, and community partnership) as well as increased transparency and improved enforcement on these actions. I can expand a lot on this, as there's a lot of data especially because the CDC teamed up with the White House to provide strategies on preventing sexual assault, from evidence they have found in numerous studies; But I mainly want to bring more attention to preventing sexual assault and what to do after it happens, if it happens that is. 

There was also a Presidential Proclamation released, introducing the concept of having the April of every year be National Sexual Assault and Awareness Month. I will describe how this is wildly beneficial to people of any age or gender, but especially young children who may learn more in primary school as a result of this.

How The University of Maryland Is Taking Action Against Sexual Assault

I will include information about the CARE to Stop Violence Initiative at the University of Maryland. 

I will be interviewing one of the CARE coordinators and/or a counselor at UMD [Insert Video Here]

Possible Questions:

• What do you feel is the most important component to preventing sexual assault?
• Why should students report being sexually assaulted and how can they do this at the University of Maryland?
• How else can students become educated on sexual assault prevention?

Facebook Could Be The Best And Worst Thing To Happen To Your Life

Source: Forbes

Angela Paradise and Meaghan Sullivan conducted a study examining undergraduates uses and their perceived affects of Facebook by giving out a survey to 357 undergraduates in the Northeastern United States. The study had three main focuses: personal relationships, employment opportunities, and privacy.

The study was conducted from the theoretical framework of the third-person effect, which predicts that people perceive themselves as invulnerable to the negative effects of social media while perceiving others as more affected. Historically, this method was applied to perceptions of the effects of traditional media (i.e media violence, pornography, rap music, etc.) and this is the first study to apply this to a social media site.

The results of the study showed that the only time that the third-person effect wasn't true during this study was when it came to the participant perceptions of Facebook's negative influence on their closest friends' personal relationship. However, this is because if a respondent doesn't think their own relationships are negatively affected by Facebook, they're less likely to think their friends' relationships are negatively affected since they're considered to be part of the respondents personal relationships.

Facebook May Be Affecting Your Public Life in New Ways

When participants in the study were asked how many "friends" they had on Facebook, the result was an average of about 480 friends each, with 28% of participants admitting to accepting friend requests from strangers. Yet, results show that participants viewed their own personal privacy as less likely to be negatively affected by Facebook users than others. Are they forgetting the network that's seeing all of their posts?

Source: The Guardian

Results from preliminary questions display that 69% of participants have privacy settings that allow only current friends to view posts, and 64% of participants use Facebook everyday, and about 4 times daily for about 37 minutes. This means that while it's only who you've accepted or requested to be your friend on Facebook can see your posts, that's still typically a network of nearly 500 (probably) frequent users seeing your posts, some of which you may not know or even like for that matter.

While all of this may seem insignificant to the average user, 45% of hiring managers use social networking sites like Facebook to research job candidates. But maybe you already have a job so this statistic doesn't affect you--but it's nothing to bat an eyelash at, since more and more people are being terminated from their current jobs for content found to be inappropriate by superiors.

Source: Conrad Goodman IT Services

In terms of strengthening regulation on Facebook, women were shown to be more supportive but there was no relationship found between the third person perceptual gap and pro-regulatory attitudes. This is most likely the result of students thinking that Facebook is a generally harmless, ambiguous activity unlike other media content (such as pornography and media violence).

Nevertheless, Paradise and Sullivan believe that findings of the third-person perceptual gap may be partly due to the student-participants perceiving themselves to be smarter than others and strongly recommend future studies should sample populations that aren't mostly Caucasian undergraduates as this study was 92% Caucasians.

How Facebook Has Changed Young Relationships

From flirting to breaking up, social media and mobile phones are woven into teens' romantic lives. The Pew Research Center conducted a study to discover Facebook's effect on relationship on teens aged 13-17 years old by holding sixteen online and in-person focus groups.

The study found that while a lot of friendships begin online, most romantic relationships are still becoming exclusive in person. Nonetheless, the study revealed that half of teens have expressed interest by adding a crush on Facebook and that the most common online social media venue for teens to "meet" romantic partners is Facebook.

The most important part of a relationship is communication (amongst others) but these teens are well aware of that. Most teens assume that they and their partner will check in with each other with great regularity throughout the day. But when asked specifically, most teens said they expect to hear from their significant other once a day or every few hours while few said they expect to hear from their partner hourly or declined to comment; this data is reflected in the graph below.

All good things must come to an end, and it's not always a happy one. 18% of teens with dating experience have experienced or initiated a breakup by sending a private message, posting about it publicly, or changing their relationship status on Facebook.

The bad news doesn't end there; 11% of teen daters have accessed a mobile device or online account of a current or former partner, and 10% have modified or even deleted their partner or ex-partners profile altogether. Apparently this isn't a hard task in today's society, being that 13% of teens reporting that partners have demanded that they share their passwords to personal email and other internet accounts with them.

This can have lasting effects, too, with 18% of teen daters admitting that current or former partners have required them to remove former boyfriends/girlfriends from their friends list from Facebook or other social media alike. And this is notably for the best considering 11% of teens report that a former partner has contacted them on the internet to threaten to harm them with 8% saying that ex-partners have then used information on the internet against them, such as to harass or embarrass them.