University Place

Justin Patchin

What is cyberbullying? Willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices. Alright, so if I take out my cell phone and start whacking you on the head with it, is that cyberbullying? Well, it's willful, it's repeated, it's harm, it's using a cell phone, so it meets all the criteria. But that's not what we're talking about, right? We're talking about using technology as a means to cause harm to others. The vast majority of teens go online, they go online every single day. The average teen these days sends and receives 2,000 text messages a month. About one in four students has been cyberbullied at some point in their lifetime. Middle and high school. About 16% admit to us that they have cyberbullied others at some point in their lifetime. The first thing these young people tell us for why they engage in the cyberbullying is revenge. They did it because the other person did something to them first. But the number one reason is they just thought it was funny. It was just a joke. Why are you making such a big deal out of this? Okay? So they just don't understand the harm that it's causing. Adolescent girls are involved in cyberbullying at least as often, if not more often, than boys. Cyberbullying is linked to low self-esteem, depression, suicidal ideation. And traditional bullying is still happening more often than cyberbullying. So there are some issues specific to cyberbullying that I'd like to talk about. Lack of supervision and monitoring. Parents have a tough time keeping up with what their kids are doing online. If a student wants private access to technology, they're gonna find it, right? Another thing about cyberbullying is those who bully can remain virtually anonymous. Well, what we know from our research though, is the vast majority of the time, the one being cyberbullied knows who's doing the bullying, okay? 85% of the time, it's somebody from their social circle, a former friend, a former romantic partner, the new romantic partner of the former romantic partner. I mean, there's almost always that connection. The other reality is by definition, with cyberbullying, there's always evidence. Always. So it's important to encourage young people to keep the evidence. Because the two most common things that a teen will do when they're being cyberbullied are the two worst things they can do. The first thing is they delete the message. What's the second worst thing they do? They respond, they respond. They say something mean back. I see it happen all the time where, maybe I'm saying mean things to you at school and you're ignoring it, maybe I'm posting mean things about you online, you're deleting it. This keeps going on and on and finally you snap, and you say something mean back to me, and now you get in trouble. Happens all the time. So what can we do about all this? How can we deter teen bullying? How can we respond? Here's some things you shouldn't do. You shouldn't increase formal sanctions. Teens aren't deterred by the threat of formal punishment. They're not gonna stop and think, "Well, I better not send this mean message because I might get arrested." I also don't like zero tolerance policies. You know, these are kind of popular but I don't think they're really that effective. I don't mind the rhetoric of "we have zero tolerance for bullying." We should have zero tolerance for bullying, but a zero tolerance policy forces you to take the same action in every incident, every case, when that action might not be appropriate for this particular situation. The other thing I don't like is public shaming. When I see a parent who engages in public shaming of their child, I see a parent whose got a problem. We need to support our kids. Stigmatizing makes bullying worse. "Forgiveness has a bigger effect than reintegrative shaming and stigmatization," but in particular, "A nurturing school environment can make up for the adverse effects of bullying." Ah, so what should we do? Give students a stake in conformity. Give them a reason to conform, give them a reason to care. If I've got nothing going on after school, detention doesn't hurt me. We need to get them involved in extracurricular activities, in drama club, in whatever so they've got this activity after school that they don't wanna miss. Connect and interact. You wanna deter them from engaging in inappropriate behavior? Develop a relationship with them. Because we have this thing in criminal justice called virtual supervision where if I have a strong connection or relationship to another person, whether it's a parent, a coach, a teacher, whoever, that when I'm confronted with a situation where I could engage in deviant behavior, even if they're not around, I'm gonna behave as if they were. The other thing we need to do is make kindness go viral. I look at kindness and compassion and caring as the opposite of bullying. So we need to encourage our students to choose kind. And we can use technology for that as well. Konner Suave, for a whole year, anonymously posted every single day, a picture of a classmate with something really nice about that classmate. In some cases, he didn't know who they were, but he just found something nice to say about them. For the whole year, he kept doing this. He was the valedictorian of the school, and when he was giving his speech at graduation, he revealed himself and said, "Yes, this is what I was doing, and I wanted to basically be nice." I think us as adults, we could learn a thing or two from the students that we're supervising. Thank you very much.

applause