Cyberbullying

The aspect of cyberbullying that stands out most to me is that it can follow the victim everywhere. Other types of bullying occur in specific locations: the school bus, the cafeteria, the classroom, the locker room. However, with smartphones and other devices becoming more prevalent among students, bullies can now harass their victims at any time, regardless of the victim's physical location. Cyberbullying can occur through text messaging, social media, gaming, email and other platforms. The public nature of social media platforms can lead victims to feel embarrassed or exposed when they are bullied through these sites. However, bullying through email or messaging can also be damaging as victims will often keep the bullying to themselves, not reporting it or asking for help.

Addressing cyberbullying in a school classroom or library is becoming an increasingly important part of teachers' and school librarians' jobs. However, in order to be effective, these lessons need to move beyond scolding and lists of behaviors to avoid. The Seven Digital Deadly Sins is a thought-provoking resource that can provide students and educators a starting point for conversations about healthy digital behavior. Another engaging way to approach cyberbullying is to ask students to think about times when they have written phrases such as "kill yourself" or "you're ugly" to their friends as a joke. Teens will often type these phrases in comments or messages to their friends, assuming that the other person will get the joke. However, seeing these statements in black and white in the comments of a post or in a text message can be harmful to the recipient, no matter how the sender intended the message to sound. The following TEDx Talk from Trisha Prabhu discusses how receiving negative messages can affect teens. Prabhu also discusses possible reasons why teens send these messages in the first place, as well as possible methods for preventing cyberbullying.

I was surprised to find that when identifying students point to "specific attributes of potential targets such as special needs, very high or very low academic abilities, lack of popularity, physical appearance, physical or mental disabilities, unfashionable clothing, and ethnicity, rather than sexual orientation or gender identity" (Faucher, Cassidy & Jackson, 2015). However, the same article that describes that research has been "slow to document" cyberbullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Ultimately, it appears that cyberbullying is most often a response to some difference (real or perceived) between the bully and the victim. 

Bullying also reaches past high school and college, extending into adult life. In my future school library, I will strive to equip students with knowledge, tools, skills and resources that will help them to end cyberbullying instead of simply surviving it. The Digital Citizenship Project (Orech, 2012) provides a great example of teaching students about digital citizenship. This project asks students to work together to build their knowledge of digital citizenship by working with students of different ages on activities. During this process, both the older and younger students learn more about their own digital behavior. We know that cyberbullying does not end when students graduate, so we need to prepare them to deal with it when it occurs. 

References:

Faucher, C., Cassidy, W., & Jackson, M. (2015). From the sandbox to the inbox: Comparing the acts, impacts, and solutions of bullying in k-12, higher education, and the workplace. Journal Of Education And Training Studies, 3(6), 111-125.

Orech, J. (2012). How it's done: Incorporating digital citizenship into your everyday curriculum. Tech & Learning, 33(1), 16-18.