Bullying and Cyberbullying

Bullying is a problem that has been around since the beginning of time, ever since the invention of “power” and the disparity of power. Bullying is defined (by Faucher, Cassidy, and Jackson) as “repeated aggressive behaviors that are intended to cause harm to a victim with relatively less power to defend themselves” (2015). The key words here are repeated, harm, and less power. Bullying happens when someone in power leverages that power to cause harm to another. It is intentional.  “Cyberbullying” is when technology is used to harm another person. This can be done through chat rooms, email, social media, and even online gaming. It can be targeted insults, harassment, having personal information leaked, and even in the form of exclusion. 

One of the things that I found most surprising was found in a paper by Faucher, Cassidy, and Jackson called “From the Sandbox to the Inbox: Comparing the Acts, Impacts, and Solutions of Bullying in K-12, Higher Education, and the Workplace.” It was that bullying and cyberbullying does not stop after high school. It continues on in college and the workplace. In fact, the data shows that it gets worse because the bullying now has real world consequences that can affect daily life and your ability to function independently. Before reading this article, I just assumed that people matured and grew out of bullying and cyberbullying and that it was not a big issue in the work field. However, this research shows that it is still very prevalent in the adult world.

So how do we deal with this issue? How do we combat bullying in adults? We have to address it with our students. We have to teach them how to be responsible, respectful, digital citizens. How do we go about this? One of the things they found was that threatening students with possible consequences was not really a deterrent. Instead, we have to aim to change youth behavior and motivations. We have to encourage their positive interactions while discouraging negatives ones like cyberbullying. A great way to do this is through a program like Screenshots which uses the Theory of Planned Behavior to shape students’ attitudes. It is a flexible curriculum that teaches students how to be digital citizens.

Another idea that I had was sparked after reading the story “I Bullied a Girl” on the website The Seven Digital Deadly Sins: Wrath. In this article, a girl admitted to cyberbullying another girl from her school. She discusses how it made her feel and also how guilty she felt when that girl started showing signs of suicidal ideations- not guilty because she was worried about the girl, but guilty because of her part in it. In other words, she was not as concerned for the girl as the guilt she would have felt if the girl had died or if her part in the bullying ever came to light. This type of self-centered response to bullying is all too common among our students. How do we get them to see and understand that their words have consequences for other people? One year, the teachers at our school participated in a poverty simulation. It was very eye opening because all of a sudden, we were able to experience some of the poverty that our students went through first had (even though it was a simulation). I wonder if there is a way to create a bullying simulation that would allow students to experience, first hand, the effects of bullying. I think that a simulation like that would really help to build empathy and understanding and could be a good activity to use at the beginning of a curriculum on digital citizenry.

Tips for being a responsible digital citizen from Asia Pacific College

References

Bickham, D., Moukalled, S., Inyart H., & Zlokower, R. (2021). Evaluating a middle-school  digital citizenship curriculum (Screenshots): Quasi-experimental study. JMIR Mental Health, 8(9). doi: 10.2196/26197

Byrne, R. I bullied a girl. In seven digital deadly sins: Wrath. Retrieved on Jul. 10, 2024 from https://sins.nfb.ca/#/Wrath/27.

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).