How big of a problem is this app?
“Toward the end of last school year, almost every student at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire had the app on his or her phone and checked it constantly to read the anonymous attacks on fellow students, faculty members and deans.”
I’ve heard of this too. D downloaded this application, had it for a week, did not like it and ended up deleting it.
The fact that Exeter put up a “geo-fence” blocking it is concerning.
Why?
@heartburner Exeter didn’t put up the geo fence they asked yik yak to do it, the article says that the company has put up a “geo fence” around 90% of US high schools.
It is mostly used for anonymous bullying. Not much good comes of it.
GIven the nastiness I have seen on Instagram I can not imagine how much worse it must be anonymously
Speaking from limited experience, It’s not quite as bad as the articles make it out to seem. Yes, some rude and hateful things are said. However, they occur with a very low frequency and they are very unlikely to be read by the victim. On college campuses there are sometimes 5-10 “Yaks” posted a minute, and names/personal information are frowned upon.
I’m not coming to Yik-Yak’s defense here, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. Still unpleasant and not very funny. I would not recommend.
At my college a freshman died (they concluded it was suicide) by falling off of the large construction crane on campus. I saw on Yik Yak later in the semester that someone claiming to be his friend had posted, asking someone else to not talk about the crane, because it was upsetting for her. That, of course, set off a flurry of pro-crane comments, just to spite her.
I told her to get off the app, because people would be merciless now that they knew it bothered someone. I myself deleted it soon after.
This app is awful. I downloaded it after seeing the article that OP shared and immediately I saw that the first few “yaks” contained posts about drugs, cursing, and sexual innuendos which were all “up-voted”. Scrolling down the page, the obscenities (is that the right word?) continued…I did not see even ONE good post.
I then immediately deleted the app. AVOID at all costs…!!
I clearly depends on the school (and probably the time of day/day of the week): I just opened the app and the first three posts were a nice quote, a question about class standing and ability to join a sorority, and someone saying how grateful they were that electronics automatically “spring forward”. Yes, people asking where there’s a party are there, but it seems pretty mellow most of the time for my school.
Recent speaker at Putney…talks about Yik Yak (at about 20 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlXbp48Rs9I
…I probably should have said this was a workshop for seniors preparing fro college.
I have had two experiences with Yik Yak, both bad. At my son’s boarding school, Yik Yak was the platform for a huge flurry of anti-social posts which caused a great deal of pain. His school launched a two day seminar at the school to address the issues surrounding the postings and the trauma they caused many students. His school dealt with it aggressively and with a geofence surrounding the institution.
At my daughter’s university, there is an ongoing Yik Yak issue, with many racist comments online.
I find the whole thing very unsettling, and to put it mildly, disgusting.
It appears obvious that it provides an outlet for the sociopathic and sadistic to vent freely without consequence. These are precisely the personality types which require consequences to behave in a manner society finds acceptable. There is obviously a difference between freedom and license. Yik Yak crosses that line repeatedly.
My understanding is that “normal” high school kids message offensively and cruelly. It will often continue until the school (and/or parents) intervene to discuss, raise consciousness, and perhaps discipline. The Yik-Yakers at SAS who were called out were not, to my knowledge, “sociopathic and sadistic” though I believe their behavior was very much “anti-social”.