The swift rise of social media as many celebrities and public figures' main source of communication with fans may be inadvertently "fueling" attacks on them, a new study published Wednesday suggests. The study, published in the Behavioral Sciences and the Law journal and excerpted by the Washington Post, found that 34 percent of attackers targeted celebrities between 1995 and 2015. A previous Secret Service report based on data compiled between 1949 and 1995 had the public figures portion at 19 percent, an increase experts argue is related to the ubiquity of social media.
"These attacks are now angry and personal," J. Reid Meloy, a University of California at San Diego forensic psychiatry professor and lead author of the paper, told the Post. "They don't want fame. They want revenge for some perceived wrong." The latest report, which includes a total of 58 attackers, saw the number of attacks against government-related figures drop from 68 percent to 38 percent.
The study suggests that Twitter, Instagram, and other popular social media outlets have provided often "mentally disturbed" attackers with a "faux connection" to their eventual targets. The study also found that attackers are typically male and rarely make direct or public threats before attacking.
Social media's influence on such behavior has been a topic of discussion surrounding the recent shooting death of Christina Grimmie, in addition to the armed robbery of Kim Kardashian in Paris. Though both incidents occurred outside the study period for this latest investigation, the new paper does make note of a Paris Hilton stalker and an attempted anthrax attack on Tom Brokaw.
Read the Post's dissection of the study in full here.
