The Destructiveness of Call-Out Culture on Campus

Last month, hoping to better understand how digital communications affects life on campus, I posed this question: “Were College Students Better Off Before Social Media?”

One undergraduate responded that what he likes best about the communications environment at his college, where there are about 10,000 students, is that “it has taught me a great deal about rapid-response crisis communications.” After graduation, he explained,  “I’m interested in pursuing a career working on political campaigns.” And campus life for his peers “has been a veritable trial-by-fire for crisis comms.”

Dozens of other college students sent answers to my inquiry, too.

Some felt that their generation has the better end of the bargain—that social media allows them to better connect with new people, or stay in closer touch with peers on campus or high school friends at other institutions. And the era one prefers is partly a matter of personality. Said one student, “In our day and age, going viral or gaining widespread internet fame is something of legend, a social conquest achieved by only those with a rare knack for cultural phenomena or those merely blessed by fate.”

But this self-electing group offered many more complaints and concerns about the social-media era than celebrations. And no negative aspect of the status quo preoccupied my undergraduate correspondents more than the stresses of call-out culture. They had no problem with objections to violence, or slurs, or other serious transgressions; but fretted that call-out culture now goes far beyond matters like that.  

Even the aspiring crisis-communications pro noted that it was also his least favorite quality about college life. “Students get worked up over