Blog Post #3: Cyberbullying

Bhatt, H. (2022, October 24). How can online platforms stop cyberbullying? AI Content Moderation for Trust and Safety. Retrieved February 16, 2023, from https://www.spectrumlabsai.com/the-blog/how-can-online-platforms-stop-cyberbullying 

Whether we like it or not, technology has taken over almost every facet over our lives in the current era. In the home alone we have smartphones, smart watches, smart TVs, smart refrigerators, smart robots that can tell us the weather, turn on our lights, and play us our favorite music, and so much more. Technology adapting to our every need begs the question of: how do we use it properly?

Kids nowadays practically come out of the womb knowing how to use the internet. What they fail to learn, however, is how to regulate what they post. It is incredibly difficult to comprehend the fact that once it goes online, you can never get it back. As Matthew Johnson, Director of Education at MediaSmarts, said in the film Dark Cloud: the high cost of cyberbullying, "And it's very difficult, once content is out there, to get rid of it completely because anyone could have made a copy" (Dupej & Embry, 2020, 27:39). The idea of permanence on the internet is something that really stuck out to me from this film because it was something that I learned growing up. Social media did not become popular for kids my age until we were in mid-late elementary school. Of course, as internet consumption rose, so did the risk of cyberbullying. Around this time was when we started having assemblies in school about the dangers of internet permanence because we did not want our elementary school mistakes to follow us for life. However, the age of first usage of social media has definitely lowered over the last 10-15 years in my opinion. I am a dance teacher, and in my experience many of my students between ages 5 and 6 have access to social media, including their own accounts. If they do not learn the consequences of what they say on the internet now, it may take awhile for them to truly grasp the concept. 

Another quote from the movie I found quite interesting was "there are no demographics that are safe from it" (Dupej & Embry, 2020, 11:22). Very often students are targeted based on their gender expression, race, or other dignifying features.  As seen in the last blog post regarding gun violence, children of color were more likely to be targeted than non-minority students. However, when it comes to cyberbullying, all students are at risk of being victims because it can be easily directed at anyone when posted online.

Something some of the articles mentioned that really resonated with me was the struggle of how to fit a "dangers of cyberbullying" lesson or "why we need to be safe on the internet" conversation into the school day. This is a big stress of mine. I plan on teaching high school math, where students only get 40 minutes a day to learn all of the content we need to cover (which is a lot). Time is limited for academics alone, so how am I supposed to grow my students into developing, well-rounded people too? One idea stated by Wilkey Oh was that "it may not be part of your lesson plan, and it may set you off track for a bit, but every time you reinforce anti-cyberbullying messages, you're doing the critical work of cyberbullying prevention" (2019). Teaching is not only about academics, but about helping our students become upstanding citizens and good people overall. One method of involving this in your classroom given by Hinduja and Patchin was to reinforce the ideas of digital citizenship and internet safety in the school and specifically in classes where technology is utilized (2022). I plan on getting my Masters in Educational Technology, so my classes will most likely be employing technology to the best of their ability. I plan on reminding my students of our rules regarding technology by using signs in my classroom that feature positive language and reinforcements. 

Furthermore, a question many of us ask ourselves is how do we know when our students are victims of cyberbullying? Our students may show signs of being cyberbullied by attempting to hide or protect their screen from the teacher or other people seeing it, shutting down their social media accounts, or losing interest in things that they used to love (Tips for Teachers, 2021). When we see our students retreat into shells of who they used to be, that is cause for worry. At that time, you can reach out to them, their parents and families, or a counselor (Tips for Teachers, 2021). This is quite the upsetting sight to see, especially when we know how awfully it can end, i.e. Amanda Todd (Dupej & Embry, 2020). 

References

Dupej, H. & Embry, M. (2020). Dark cloud: The high cost of cyberbullying. TELUS Wise. 

Hinduja, S. & Patchin, J. W. (2022). Cyberbullying Identification, Prevention, and Response. Cyberbullying Research Center (cyberbullying.org).

Tips for Teachers: Warning Signs a Child is Being Cyberbullied or is Cyberbullying. (2021, May 21). stopbullying.gov. https://www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/tips-for-teachersLinks to an external site. 

Wilkey Oh, E. (2019, March 25). Teachers' Essential Guide to Cyberbullying Prevention. Common Sense Education. https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/teachers-essential-guide-to-cyberbullying-preventionLinks to an external site.