Will zoo uproar change how people use social media?
When 26-year-old Sara Kowatch heard a gorilla had been shot and killed on Saturday, she decided not to post on social media about it.
All her friends were already posting their opinions, and it was turning into such a divisive issue. Why bother?
"The saturation of social media posts regarding Harambe actually drove me away from posting about it," the Hyde Park resident explained. "My Facebook is full of everyone's opinion on the situation and I felt like mine would get lost…"
After Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden personnel shot and killed Harambe, social media exploded, focusing a large part on the parents of the 3-year-old who fell in the exhibit.
Many searched for the parents on Facebook. Some sent harassing comments, while others surveyed previous posts.
Zoo incident highlights phenomenon of parent shaming
Past social media usage is often dredged up when common people are in the limelight. It begs the question: Will the most recent social media firestorm change the way people use social media?
In Facebook and Twitter polls by The Enquirer of about 115 people, 47 percent of respondents said they had not thought about their social media usage after the zoo incident.
Thirty-eight percent said it wouldn't change the way they use the internet. (An additional six percent said their social media patterns wouldn't change because a situation similar to this would never happen to them.)
Only 7 percent said the zoo uproar would change the way they shared online.
"People might use some caution, but I really think they are going to do what they are going to do," said Leslie Rasmussen, an assistant professor of communications at Xavier University who studies social media usage.
"I teach a social media class and I spoke with my students last semester about their use of social media," she added. "So many of them don't even think about it. They just do it."
Why won't we change our patterns?
Kowatch said she likely won't change her social media patterns in light of the zoo social media firestorm, but that's because she's already cautious to begin with.
She's in the marketing industry, and she understands how important social media is. In fact, a potential employer once referenced one of her Tweets in a job interview.
"It serves as a constant reminder that people will read into your social media as part of who you are as a person and judge you by it," she said.
Dave Bixler, a Loveland resident, also said he wouldn't change his social media patterns.
"I assume anything I put in social media (or on the interwebs in general) is public domain," he wrote. "To assume anything else would be the height of foolishness."
Kowatch and Bixler think about what they post online. But Rasmussen said many people don't think much about their social media usage. It's just part of life.
That's part of the reason people's patterns won't change, she said.
"It's part of this oversharing phenomenon," said Rasmussen. "We tell everyone every time we grab a cup of coffee or go to class."
Rassmussen said social media use is also very common for Millennials and Generation Z, which the Pew Research Center defines as the group of people born after 1980 and 1997, respectively.
Many of those young people grew up with platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, Rassmussen said.
"This is all they've every known," Rassmussen said. "I suspect they feel this is normal. They feel we should be able to put out anything we want, including the judgement of others."
"International news is picking up on this, the parents are in the limelight, and still that hasn’t changed anyone’s mind."
Let's keep the conversation going. Tell us whether you'll change your social media habits in the poll below. Note: This is not a part of the aforementioned Twitter and Facebook polls.