The age of social media has brought us closer than ever possible, with platforms offering nearly free text messaging, audio call and video call services, but this has created a monster in the form of problems by which every new technology or idea creates. Social media has given every person an individual voice in the form of tweets and comments which has created privacy issues and has given birth to the concept online trolling. Hailey Baldwin is one of the recent stars to comment on the culture of trolling and she believes platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have become “a breeding ground for cruelty.”

The 23-year-old offered an insight on how she is affected by the negativity in a post on Instagram. “I would say my most favourite part of existing is human connection. I absolutely love connecting with other people, I love finding common interests between me and others, hearing people’s story, I love laughing with others, and I love crying with others. I feel so very, very deeply,” she said.

“My heart explodes with happiness when my friends and family are happy and my heart feels crushed when they are hurting and sad,” she continued. “The reason I say all of this is: because I love to connect, I do my best to expose my heart which means I love freely and I empathise deeply, and because of that I also hurt very easily when I feel like people don’t see my heart and see me for who I am.”

Hailey then explained that “the reason I’m even sharing this, is because Instagram, Twitter etc is such a breeding ground for cruelty towards each other, and because people don’t take the time to connect with each other on an honest level before they resort to hatred, it starts to damage what could be really beautiful human interaction and connection.”