The Tolerance Generation

Draws directly on insights from teens to reframe our understanding of bullying in the age of social media and why anti-bullying campaigns have been unsuccessful in combating it. Fitting in and standing out in high school is an eternal rite of passage for youth. Increasingly, these struggles to establish and maintain hierarchies are labeled under the umbrella of “bullying.” This form of conflict is considered such a significant problem that all fifty states have passed anti-bullying legislation, and many schools engage in prevention programs. Despite these efforts, bullying rates haven’t decreased. Why is that? Today’s teens face a unique challenge: social media. In The Tolerance Generation, sociologist Sarah Miller explores how youth grapple with bullying in the digital age and the industry designed to prevent it. Based on two school years with students at a Northeastern high school, Miller calls “Township,” the book chronicles how adolescents navigate conflict in an increasingly digital society, all while their educators promote tolerance. Charting teens’ lives as they are affected not only by bullying, but also by sexting exposures, school shooting threats, and viral cancel culture, their stories illustrate the amplifying pressures social media places on youth and why bullying prevention efforts fail to help them. The school’s anti-bullying campaigns are engineered to address individual instances of explicit conflict, but not to change the culture that contributes to and constitutes bullying, nor to help students who are most likely to be targeted. Miller captures school practices that fail to address bullying as a systemic problem, while she shows how students’ online lives are inextricable from a culture of exclusion and harm. However, by following teens on a variety of platforms, she also documents another realm, where adolescents develop their own bullying prevention strategies using the very tools adults blame for bullying. Here, youth harness digital culture to go beyond tolerance, using social media as a site for education, conflict resolution, and resistance. Ultimately, Miller establishes that to prevent bullying, schools must address the structural factors that marginalize students and offer tools for creating a true culture of care that supports youth both at school and online.