Bullies, Cyber and Otherwise

By Matt Boulton from Vancouver, Canada (Fight) [CC-BY-SA-2.0]

This week has been an enlightening one for me.  I've obviously heard about the topics we've discussed such as online safety, cyberbullying and sexting, but I have to confess that my understanding of some of them was limited.

My go-to, Wikipedia, gives a great overview of cyberbullying here.  It also talks about sexting.

After researching the topics for our presentation, I've come across resources that can help advise students, teachers and parents on online safety.  I've posted them below.  My overwhelming feeling, though, is that this discussion is not exclusive to online protection.

"When Dad Banned Text Messaging" assumes the responsibility for the all of the problems in Debbie Geiger's family emanates form texting.  Remove the ability to text and all the problems will be solved.  I disagree.  I believe there are bigger problems at work.  The comments section shows that many people agree, to great extremes, however. Of particular interest is comment number 25 in which Ms. Geiger responds to the overwhelming number of comments.

I do have one observation that has surprised me about this experience. It seems that cyber-bullying is not just a problem for teens sending text messages, but also for people who write on newspaper blogs! I’m surprised by the number of anonymous posters who threw rocks at my family. 

She raises an interesting point.  It seems that some of the posters also need to work on learning how to become good people.

Danah Boyd adeptly strikes at the root cause and solutions to the issues surrounding online protection and cyberbullying in her article "Bullying Has Little Resonance with Teenagers."  In her article she argues that technology is not the cause of bullying, it's simply the most recent tool that people are using to "humiliate, deprecate, or isolate" each other.  It's also a tool that serves to attract attention.  She points at the wider social issues that may be exacerbating these problems.  Finally, she argues that focusing on empathy can go a long way to helping students get attention, validation, and status in positive ways.

Most of the posts I've written for this class have focused on off-line solutions to online problems.  I strongly believe that teaching kids how to be good people will go much further than focusing on the technology rather than the root causes.  It seems that Ms. Boyd agrees with me.  The comments section of her article pushes these ideas even further.  I was particularly interested in the comments surrounding the questions posed by drama queen, "I may live in a world populated by drama queens but isn't relationship drama is a part of normal adult life?"

Is it?

Resources:
Resources for Younger Students
Think u Know? Resources