Bella Valinoti

Ms. Mcduffee
C Block
12/12/16
Social Media in the Crucible
In around 1692, there was a large amount of paranoia and fear going through countries.
Everyone was paranoid that they would be accused next of witch craft. Anything you did could
have been misinterpreted as witch craft. For example, your riding down the street on your bike
and fall you notice someone was looking at you when this happened, they would ultimately
assume that the person looking at you as you fell had caused it and they were a witch. The fear of
witches had originated in England; thousands of people had died in the process. This had spread
to the New World. One of the towns that experienced the witch craft trials was Salem. In this day
and age, they didnt have any technology that allowed for them to voice what was happening and
allow for information to spread as fast. If they had technology it would have caused for the fear
of witch craft to spread to more countries rather than the select few it was in.
Everyone was very paranoid, the only way to find out information on what was
happening was by going to church on Sunday, or gossip from the neighbors. The news of people
being accused came from people who sat in the court room listening in and helping judge those
accused. In Salem a group of teenage girls started the hysteria, they had started it as a joke,
accusing people as a prank and then they escalated the situation to where people were actually
being hung. Over two hundred people had been accused of being witches but there had only been
twenty deaths. But the issue with finding out from neighbors and friends was information always
got lost on the way, the information is altered slightly each time, making it hard to tell what was
the truth and what wasnt. There was a lack of thought during this time period, they were very
focused on their religious beliefs. Clouding their judgment and preventing them from seeing a

good logical reason for the bad things that would happen to people. Instead they jumped to
conclusions and assumed that it was the people surrounding them.
If they had a way of sending things electronically in this time period, it would have
resulted in the information spreading faster and being more accurate. If they had resources to
spread information like this, it would be broadcasted to a much larger spectrum. Allowing for the
rest of the world to hear what was going and become paranoid as well. If Abigayle had away to
post on social media about her run ins with witchcraft more people in Salem would have heard
about it in a timely fashion. This would have resulted in people in different countries to see the
hysteria in Salem and would have spread there as well. Social media in our day and age allows
for us to hear of things going on around the world, today we dont allow for religious beliefs to
cloud our judgement and make us do irrational things. They believed practically everything they
hear and assumed from the moment the rumors started that everyone was conversing with the
devil and doing dark magic. But adding social media to the picture would have led to mass
hysteria world-wide making it a much broader scale.
Adding social media to the picture would have such a negative effect, the deaths would
be through the roof. In Salem they had only executed twenty people but in England there were
thousands of people hung and accused of associating with the devil and doing dark magic. On a
larger scale this would affect the entire since world they would believe that everyone was a witch
and a larger scale the death ratio would be out of control. In modern day society an example of
social media spreading news quickly is an Instagram account called Prepconfessions, they post
different news thats going on in the private schools and allows for a large scale of people to hear
about whats going on elsewhere. Social media would allow for the news of people being

accused of witch craft to get around towns faster as well and keep everyone caught up with what
is going on in the world.
In 1692, when everyone was being accused of witch craft it was on a smaller scale not
allowing for as many people to hear about it. It was mainly in England, and the epidemic in
Salem was on a much smaller level. If social media had been involved it would have been
catastrophic leading to many deaths. There were still a lot of deaths in England and a select
amount in Salem, if social media was involved it would have led to many more deaths and much
more paranoia in the world.

High lights
1. What did you hope to accomplish with this writing?
I had hoped to explain why it would be a negative thing adding social media to the
witch craft trials.
2. What do you think you did well in this writing?
I think that my formatting and organization was good. I think that I was also able to
express my opinion well.
3. What are areas of weakness in this essay?
I think my topic sentences are kind of weak I think that they are decent.
4. After the peer review and self revision, what are changes that you made?
I made some grammatical changes and added more examples of social medias
negative effects.