Trauma and Social Media: The Psychological Dimensions of Twitter’s #WhyIDidntReportIt

Abstract

This paper analyses how social media, with particular reference to Twitter, has revolutionized the nature of political conversations. Social media accounts have become the extended selves of individuals. The recent #WhyIDidntReportIt on Twitter started a collective therapy and unknowingly, started a recovery process for many victims who participated in it. Twitter was able to provide these people a platform free of social hierarchies and social shame, where they could come together and share their trauma. Social media has emerged as a great leveller against social systems that divide and separate people.