( CNN ) Last week , 16-year-old Maxwell Morton was arrested and charged with murder after he posed for a selfie with the body of a teenager he had just allegedly shot and then uploaded the picture to Snapchat . A friend of Morton showed a screen grab of the picture to his mom , who then called police . Of course , it 's absurd to suggest a selfie was in any way an incentive or motive for the murder , just as it 's absurd to suggest that social media causes criminal behavior . People have been killing each other since the days of stone tablets . But is social media , which allows for limitless self-absorption , exacerbating hatred and violence when mixed with seeming anonymity ? Or is social media simply allowing us to be more open about what we do—and in some cases , allow crimes to be easily discovered and reported ? In other words , does a `` selfie culture '' show us as we 've always been or is it turning us into something worse ? Last year , there were several instances in which sexual assaults were documented on social media by the alleged perpetrators . In July 2014 , a 16-year-old Texas girl named Jada went to a party where she was allegedly drugged and raped . Jada does n't remember what happened . What she does know is that picture of her naked and bent body was shared all over the Internet and then mimicked in what became a perverse `` meme , '' in which others posted pictures of themselves in the same pose . In an eerily similar story , police say a 26-year-old North Carolina woman had no idea she was sexually assaulted during a party in September until pictures of her assault were later posted on social media . In November , several high school students in New Mexico allegedly sexually assaulted a young girl and posted pictures of their crime on social media . In the New Mexico incident , people reposted the pictures to hold the Albuquerque police and school district accountable for their failure to take action against the alleged assailants . In the Texas incident , Jada spoke out about being victimized , not only by her assailants but also by those on social media—and this helped spark awareness and outrage about rape culture in America . Social media is also used by victims to tell their stories . A woman in Florida used social media to post a picture of her bruised arm , alleging her Florida State University football player boyfriend had battered her—leading to a police investigation . A woman in England posted a picture of her own battered face after a man had allegedly attacked her in a nightclub . The 29-year-old woman , Jeanne Marie Ryan , wanted to raise awareness about domestic violence and raise £100 for a women 's shelter . She reportedly ended up raising £12,000—or over $ 18,000 . There 's no evidence that incidents of rape and sexual assault are increasing because of social media . It could be that the opposite is true . But , social media seems to have increased incivility or hate speech in our society by making us more aware of its prevalence . People who were once shouting sexist and racist epithets from the windowless basements of their parents ' homes now have Internet connections and can share those epithets on Twitter and beyond . The assault on civility , just like the assault on women 's bodies , is nothing new . The new part is that even the loneliest of people now have the tools to broadcast their assaults far and wide . One ca n't help but feel the simultaneous accessibility and anonymity of social media makes it easier to be less caring . Studies show Millennials feel that technology is dehumanizing . Posting the picture of an assault victim online , or a hateful tweet about someone , certainly is a dehumanizing act . Would the thousands who posted photos as part of the hideous # JadaPose meme have literally assaulted the 16-year-old girl if given the opportunity ? I hope not . Did they even think their mocking photos were contributing to justify Jada 's assault and re-victimizing her ? Does n't appear so . They probably were n't thinking much about Jada at all . She 'd been reduced to a `` meme '' —an idea , a representation of a concept—not a person . We take more selfies than ever before , and yet we seem to be less self-aware . Social media allows the narcissism in all of us to come out . Some people take it to the extreme by posting assaults of violent acts . One has to wonder how much this public platform has eroded our humanity .
Maxwell Morton allegedly killed a teenager and posted a selfie with the victim on Snapchat . Sally Kohn : Is a selfie culture in any way responsible for senseless actions ?