Blog Post 7: Cyberbullying
Since social media and digital platforms have become increasingly popular, cyberbullying has become a major topic in schools. As Faucher, Cassidy, and Jackson state in “From the Sandbox to the Inbox: Comparing the Acts, Impacts, and Solutions of Bullying in K-12, Higher Education, and the Workplace” (2015), bullying has been around in schools way before the dawn of computers. However, cyberbullying brings quite a few new challenges to the table. For example, cyberbullying can be done anonymously. Through message boards, fake social media accounts, and apps that create fake phone numbers, people can anonymously bully others on the internet (Cyberbullying Research Center, n.d.). Because anonymity is so much more possible with online platforms, this also opens the door for more people to choose to engage in cyberbullying than before (Faucher et al., 2015). When bullying is done fact-to-face, the victims associate a person with who to blame. If the bullying can be done anonymously online, people who normally would not have wanted to be known as a bully will participate because the repercussions are eliminated.
Another major challenge that can happen with cyberbullying is the sheer volume of audience (Faucher et al., 2015). For example, in physical bullying practices, a person who starts a rumor at school will tell a couple friends who may tell a couple friends. In many instances, usually the information is shared with only people who may know the victim of the bullying or attend the same school as them. Though this type of the bullying is still extremely dangerous and harmful, the audience is usually limited by location. With cyberbullying, it is possible for bullying to go completely viral and meet audience all over the world. For example, the video of Tyler Clementi was shared on Twitter by his roommate and was able to reach a much more widespread audience at a much faster rate (Chaucer et al., 2015). Overall, cyberbullying brings major new challenges in the world of bullying and harassment.
After engaging with this week’s materials, the resource I found the most profound was “The Seven Digital Deadly Sins” (National Film Board of Canada, 2014). I found it interesting to think of cyberbullying and elements of inappropriate digital use as the seven deadly sins. So many of the deadly sins were interconnected and fed off of each other. Particularly, I found gluttony and greed to be extremely interesting because so many people today have such hard time turning away their devices and social media. In terms of gluttony, the videos and stories were shocking because so many people let their overuse of digital platforms essentially ruin their lives. With greed, I think it takes it a step further to really show what people are willing to do just to engage with more people and gain more attention through digital platforms. In turn, this relates to pride because the need for more and more digital attention and gaining that reciprocation influences a person’s illusion of self-pride. So many of the deadly sins connect to one another, and they can overwhelm people to engage in cyberbullying tactics for the sake of gaining attention and staying connected to their virtual audience.
In the wrath video in particular, the guests stated “he’s [friend of George W. Bush] thinking we can destroy him, and we can, and that’s good” (National Film Board of Canada, 2014, 00:40). He discusses this behavior as if it is his civic duty to gain traction with other online trolls to ruin the lives or reputations of others. As an English teacher, I think it is always to connect canonical texts to real world examples to help students understand why stories are still relevant today. This form of cyberbullying is almost like a metaphorical witch hunt. After discussing McCarthyism and the red scare, students could be introduced to modern day digital forms of “witch hunts” to make the connection between what was happening then and how cyberbullying is done today. In recent years, the new way of describing this kind of behavior is “cancel culture.” The video below explains what cancel culture is and how it affects online users today.
Additionally, it is very important for lessons on digital citizenship to take place in schools. However, these lessons should not be done just for the sake of a school being able to say they have been completed. Digital citizenship and cyberbullying awareness should be thought provoking and engaging, so that students understand the sincere importance of digital citizenship (Orech, 2012). As Orech discusses in “How It’s Done: Incorporating Digital Citizenship Into Your Everyday Curriculum” (2012), giving students real world experience and ownership over their impact with digital citizenship makes the lesson much more meaningful than doing a one day, mandatory lesson. To teach students about digital citizenship, I would want to show student’s personal stories about how cyberbullying has affected students, teach students about resources they may use if they themselves have been affected by cyberbullying, and create a project that gives students ownership in their influence on the internet and digital citizenship.
References
Cyberbullying Research Center. (n.d.) Cyberbullying videos to use in presentations.
Retrieved from https://cyberbullying.org/videos
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.
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bisnMOujqFs
National Film Board of Canada. (2014). Seven digital deadly sins. Gaurdian.[Web page].
Retrieved from http://sins.nfb.ca/#/wrath
Orech, J. (2012). How it's done: Incorporating digital citizenship into your everyday
curriculum. Tech & Learning, 33(1), 16-18.
https://www.unicef.org/end-violence/how-to-stop-cyberbullying
Hi Alex!
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
First off, thanks for defining "cancel culture" for me. I knew it's become a movement of sorts to just "cancel" people who have done/said something discriminatory towards others, but I didn't know it had a name. (I live under a rock, I know >.< )
I also appreciated your connection between McCarthyism and present-day digital "witch hunts." Comparing past and present events helps us to take a step back and try to learn from history. Whether we discover we're right or wrong, we've at least taken a moment to consider our thoughts and actions, giving ourselves a chance to build compassion and tear down bias.
People, especially younger generations, have more immediate power in their individual voices than ever, and we can't expect our students to understand how to handle this power or appreciate all the possible consequences of a misstep. As you explained from Faucher's article, the audience is HUGE and available at the click of a button.
Thanks for sharing!
Victoria
Hi Alex!
ReplyDeleteI was also fascinated with the Seven Deadly Digital Sins resource. It helped me connect some things that I had never thought to connect before. One of the interviews that stood out to me was the one with Josie Long about lust. She said something that I think we all sort of know, but would never actually say out loud to a group of our friends that we are in a room with. She said, "When you get on your phone what you're saying is none of you people are good enough for me." She was, of course, talking about the need to be on your phone, scrolling through social media, etc. interacting with complete strangers when we have the privilege of being in a room with those that we know (and probably love very much). I never connected that desire with the idea of lust before. It makes perfect sense.
I also enjoyed how you connected the Witch Hunts of yesteryear with the digital culture that we experience today. That is also a new way of looking at things for me as well!
Great post! Have a wonderful week!