Cyberbullying: A Hidden Monster

 

         When my children were small, we used to read The Monster at the End of This Book, which details a very stressed-out Grover from Sesame Street imploring readers to NOT turn the page because he had been forewarned that there was indeed a scary monster lurking at the end. Of course, we kept on, turning page after page while Grover valiantly tried bricks and hammers and pleas that rang on deaf ears until finally it was revealed (much to his/our relief) that the monster was HIM. Not terrifying at all. Just fuzzy, benign Grover, who was the exact opposite of scary and the member of a cast of characters we have all called friends in our early days.

         While Grover had—and gave us all— warning that something wicked this way comes, the same cannot be said of cyberbullying, where the monsters lurk in the guise of “friends” who do very real harm to those involved. Unfortunately, with its safe distance and covert anonymity, people feel empowered to unleash their inner mean girl (or boy) from behind a screen, and the results can be devastating. My own son fell prey to an impersonator (he had shared his login with another student) in third grade when he was accused of saying terrible things about another boy in a chat room associated with a video game they all played. While it was discovered later that it was not him, this was our first foray into the very real dangers of online bullying.  

That was 18 years ago, and what struck me most as I was reading the current literature is the fact that little has changed. In fact, the problem may be worse. The internet and social media are far more ubiquitous than in 2002, giving more opportunities for cyberbullying to thrive. One would hope that in the span of nearly two decades this issue would have been eradicated, but alas, it thrives, mostly because it grows in secret. In fact,

One of the reasons for which there may exist a lack of awareness about bullying, cyberbullying, and harassment (or a lack of accurate information), is that many targets choose to suffer in silence rather than report what they are experiencing (Faucher, Cassidy, & Jackson, 2015, p. 115).

For this reason, programs such as the Digital Citizenship Project (Orech, 2017, p. 17) are so important. This project, which fosters authentic interaction between middle school students and high school student mentors, helps to provide empathy, a real-world audience, and a sense of community between students that can make a difference in promoting digital citizenship as well as bringing issues to light in constructive ways.

In our time of social distancing, my work with students has shifted to entirely online interaction. While over 40% of my students do not have access to internet at home, I can still bring to light issues that continue to affect all of us in the coming weeks through the materials and assignments sent home. One of the most eye-opening articles I read focused on the fact that as we move from a face-to-face environment for learning, and students are not able to go about life as normal, the likelihood is that cyberbullying will spike, especially since these are times of increased internet use, frustration, and uncertainty (Hinduja, 2020). In addition, “Lack of access to counseling and mentoring by educators [as well as] Increased student isolation” (Hinduja, 2020) will call for extra measures of patience and vigilance.

As Hinduja (2020) points out, while we have a somewhat captive online student audience, now is a great time to “Push that content to their news and activity feeds! ‘Promote’ and ‘sponsor’ and elevate those safety tips!” In these historic days, we should do all we can to be the harbingers of kindness and safety for our students. As always, their well-being is the ultimate goal.

Resources

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.

Hinduja, Sameer. (2020, March 16). Coronavirus, online learning, social isolation, and cyberbullying: How to support our students [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://cyberbullying.org/coronavirus-online-learning-social-isolation-cyberbullying

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