Abstract

The academic study of the vulnerability posed by the digital world remains an evolving interdisciplinary discussion. Social media plays a significant role in the growing incorporation of the digital world in day-to-day living; even more so following the Covid-19 pandemic. Although social media provided a forum for enhanced connectivity in the isolating period of a global lockdown, it has been recognised as a potentially harmful and vulnerable space for its users (see Lavis & Winter, 2020; Bailey et al., 2022; Price et al., 2022). This lecture aims to explore the potential 'harms' posed on social media platforms through a zemiological lens by drawing upon the early findings of the presenter's doctoral research. The findings of this study will be framed through the lens of participant's lived experience of the 'normalisation of online hate' in the form of trolling, weight stigma and the [lack of] regulation of expressions of hate online. This will be thematically positioned into the context of diet culture and filtered lifestyles.