By: Emily Socola
A new form of bullying has derived from the digital revolution known as cyberbullying. It has become extremely prevalent in kids ages 12-18, both at school and at home. As a society we need to combat this issue and recognize cyberbullying as an issue that should be handled not only at home by parents, but at school, by teachers and administration. The curriculum for schools has had to adapt to the digital revolution, as now we have smart boards in every classroom, smart phones, ebooks, and tablets accessible to students. So why shouldn’t school policy change and adapt as well?
Social media and Information and Communication Technologies or ICT’s, have given teenagers a platform to become bullies, and in a more psychologically harmful way. Many adults may not simply understand cyberbullying and it can be frightening to both parents and school administrators because it involves communication technologies in which they may be unfamiliar. As a result, many schools seem to ignore this issue or they do not take the right steps to intervene. I do believe that with cyberbullying, the school should play an active role. In this essay, I will address what cyberbullying is in all shapes and forms, explain that it is potentially very harmful to learning, and why schools need intervene with cyberbullying just as they would with traditional bullying at school. I will be using criminological theories of delinquency to explain cyberbullying and also try to explain the psychology of bullying itself.
What is Cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying can be defined as bullying that takes place using electronic technology which includes devices and equipment such as cellphones and computers. One can be bullied through communication tools including social media sites, text messages, chat, and websites (What is Cyberbullying?). Another current study defined it as the use of electronic methods of communication to repeatedly cause intentional harm or emotional distress to another (Parris, Varjas, Meyers, and Cutts).
The Teen Internet Behavior Study noted that “almost one in four of teens claimed to be a target of cyberbullying and two-thirds of all teens have witnessed cruel behavior online” (Freeman). What is problematic is that 1 in 10 parents are aware that their teen could be a target to cyberbullying, and adults have not grasped the enormity of the detrimental effects it can have on adolescents. In order to combat these trends, public awareness of cyberbullying should be increased, especially in regards to schools and school policy.
Figure 1
This is an example of a video that went viral and was released after a teen committed suicide because of an ongoing battle with cyberbullying. The Amanda Todd Story , exemplifies the fact that cyberbullying can often be just as great, if not greater, than traditional bullying. The emotional distress experienced by cybervictims can cause a number of negative consequences. In a study which focused on high school student’s coping ability with cyberbullying, they concluded that victims were more likely to “exhibit depressive symptoms and problem behaviors such as bringing weapons to school, or threatening to commit suicide, compared to their non-victimized peers” (Parris, Varjas, Meyers, and Cutts). But also, victims were more likely to result to drug and alcohol abuse as a means to cope. Cyberbullying can have more psychologically harmful effects than traditional bullying and this may be due to the fact that it takes place in a more permanent place in cyberspace and is viewable by a much larger audience (Parris, Varjas, Meyers, and Cutts). Amanda Todd is just one example of how severe cyberbullying can be. There are thousands of more cases reported and unreported each year.
It is no doubt that the Internet has changed the lives of adults, but many do not consider the impact it has on children’s lives, as they have grown up with this technology as a normal part of their adolescence. In the last decade, “technology has changed the landscape for children’s lives” (William and Guerra). For many adults, they are just being introduced to information and communication technologies. But, researchers argue that “cyberbullying” develops into “cyber violence” and it should be an issue of adult concern (Cesaroni, Downing, and Alvi). Also, because adults do not understand cyberbullying on a personal level, they may underestimate the severity, but at the same time, their fears regarding cyberbullying may be exaggerated. These exaggerated fears often develop into what Stan Cohen refers to as a “moral panic.” A moral panic occurs when a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests” (Cohen). It seems to be that society is in a moral panic about cyberbullying because moral panics are consequences of “public apprehensions about real, but poorly understood, strains and tensions in society.” Public awareness of the issue has been increased through research, the media, and experts taking a role in solving the social issue. But, whether the right steps are occurring to prevent and increase the knowledge of cyberbullying is questionable. Ways to resolve the problem have been introduced in minor ways such as ban on electronic devices, new school policies, awareness campaigns, and have also begun to be addressed in more formal ways such as policy creations and legislative debates ( Cesaroni, Downing, and Alvi). Unfortunately, much of the cyberbullying takes place outside of school while the kids are at home. It is obvious that the problem does originate at home and that parents play a vital role in the regulation of their children’s internet activity. This creates a grey area for school administrators and educators because they are unsure of when to intervene in non-academic related issues that occur outside the home. For example, this is comparative to school involvement with safe sex. Many school’s promote safe sex and even give away free condoms. This topic is always up for debate. But, this is a non-academic related issue, so what is the school’s involvement with it and where can we draw the line? Cyberbullying falls into this same category of a non-academic related issue that requires some sort of school interference.
An Explanation of Cyberbullying Using Criminological Theories of Delinquency
Research indicates that teenagers agree online activity has a distinct moral code different from the offline world. In a study of 270 students, grades 7-12 given a survey, the results indicated 27 % thought cyberbullying was not a big deal, 26 % noted that they could deal with it, and 18 % believed that they had the right to say anything that they wanted to online, even if it hurt somebody or violates their privacy. Because we are granted freedom of speech and expression, it raises a question as if the right is given to school going children using this right to intentionally harm someone else (Cesaroni, Downing, and Alvi). These results lead me to believe that almost all children who are active social media users, internet users, and even texters, have engaged in some sort of cyberbullying. This certain study made an inference that because North American Schools have a zero tolerance policy for fighting and traditional bullying, it leads the students to a different and much easier outlet to bully in non traditional ways. The problem with most of these surveys and studies is that they often question kids in how they bully online, why they bully online, and how often they are bullied. They very rarely question the aftereffects like how often it led to anxiety, school absences, or how often it led to decreased Internet usage. A way to begin to find out information in schools around the country is to have all school’s enforce a survey that questions their students internet activity and if/how they engage in cyberbullying, how has it affected their own behavior, etc.
Cyberbullying has previously been studied through the disciplines of education, psychology, the health sciences, and media and communications fields. As argued in the article published in Youth Justice, titled “Bullying Enters the 21st Century? Turning a Critical Eye to Cyberbullying Research,” bullying also needs to be studied through theories of criminology. This article uses an argument that I would disagree with stating, “cyberbullying and Internet hacking is just another form of juvenile delinquency” comparative to drug use, alcohol use, and stealing. This article also says, “it is important to remember that many youth engage in nonviolent, delinquent or deviant behavior, and to some degree it is a fairly normal behavior for adolescents.” I would agree that in some cases, minor cyberbullying is a normal behavior for adolescents, but would argue that making threats to kill someone, or claiming they should kill themselves is hardly normal. It is also important to note that many adolescents engaging in cyber bullying usually resemble the adolescent who would not engage in traditionally bullying and that comes of as non-aggressive person (Cesaroni, Downing, Alvi). This article also suggests that the Internet creates a new context for social interaction and that one’s individual identity is replaced with a social identity. For adolescents, one’s social identity can often be just as important as how they appear offline. Therefore, “if the social norms of the Internet present an imperative that value the invisibility of one’s self, accountability for individual actions may be compromised” (Cesaroni, Downing, and Alvi). Adolescents may feel they should not be personally held responsible for engaging in cyberbullying if “everyone else was doing it too.” The British Journal of Developmental Psychology published an article titled “Morality, values, traditional bullying, and cyberbullying in adolescence” which aimed to correlate traditional bullying with cyberbullying. They concluded that cyberbullying is an extension of traditional bullying. This study, which consisted of 390 adolescents ages 14-18, was to investigate the human values and some morality aspects of adolescents involved in traditional and cyberbullying, trying to trace points in common and differences between them (Menisini, Nocentini, and Camodeca). Research suggests that bullies seem to be deficient in cognitions, emotions, and behaviors concerning ethical issues and morality, but there is less literature and research that analyzes cyberbullying apart from traditional bullying. For example, it seems that bullies are less empathetic and show less shame and guilt of their actions. This study focused on analyzing cyberbullies and “claimed that specific characteristics of cyberbullying (e.g., the anonymity of the perpetrators and the absence of direct confrontation with the victim) seem to result in low levels of both affective and cognitive empathy, suggesting that the latter may play a more important role in cyberbullying than in offline bullying, especially for boys” (Menisini, Nocenti, and Comodeca).
It is also suggested that in order to understand the nature of bullying, one must take into consideration values and the value system in which they were raised. For instance, children may have a different definition of what they believe is right and what they believe is wrong, and therefore may bully for different reasons. “Some children may bully because they pursue a self-enhancing goal instead of a relationship enhancing one or because they aim at controlling resources and at gaining power and success” (Menisini, Nocentini, and Camodeca.) Although bullying, traditional and nontraditional, exists differently in all perpetrators and victims, it is important to have a certain understanding of why adolescents engage in this behavior if attempting to try to resolve, understand, and address the issue.
The Laws That Regard Cyberbullying and the Opposing Arguments
There are several national laws in America that regard cyberbullying or some type of online harassment. New York State was the first state to pass a law that included cyberbullying as a part of online harassment.
Figure 2
Since the Video in Figure 2, New York has passed the law. It is bothersome to see that freedom of speech and censorship are the issues concerned with the law and not the safety of our children. Although there are several valid points brought up in opposition to this law, changes cannot be made without taking drastic measures. According to Christina Noce, a writer for YNN,
“Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York’s legislative leaders say they have completed final negotiations on the state’s first cyber bullying bill. The legislation contains a three-part agreement to deter occurrences of cyber bullying as well as highlight and educate the state on the matter. While this law will not carry a criminal penalty, it is the state’s way of recognizing that cyber bullying is an existing problem and that harassment, insults, taunting and threats through social media as defined by the bill will not be tolerated.”
This law being enacted is just another way to spread knowledge on the topic. Cyberbullying should never reach the extent and severity of being classified as a criminal offense, but unfortunately many people have been harmed or harmed themselves from this online harassment. If the problem was being taken under control at school and at home, law enforcement wouldn’t need to get involved. It is as simple as this, introduce a school policy to have cyberbullying assemblies each year; it would spread awareness and create student engagement. Often times students do not even report cyberbullying to school personnel or parents because they feel they will be no help. This is a also a major problem. According to School Psychology International, “cyberbullying prevention and intervention methods should aim at modifying norms and beliefs of students- teaching that cyberbullying is neither legitimate or acceptable. ” Successful school programs suggest that programs offering health education and teaching emotional self management competencies have positively impacted students ability to deal with interpersonal conflict (Marees and Petermann).
Relative Problems Regarding Schools
People stress school involvement in bullying and cyberbullying, but there is little experience, guidance, and funding for the schools to do so. The laws that regard student speech in school are outdated, and the problem is just that; these laws only focus on what happens inside the school sand it is unclear to school officials what actions they can legally take. As society and technology has developed, new ways to express “speech” have presented themselves and therefore, new laws regarding student speech need to be passed. In the journal Education Week, an article was published about the gaps in laws regarding cyberbullying, student speech, and what actions can legally be made. The existing law in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1969 ruling on student speech in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District is, “the court limited schools’ authority to curtail controversial student speech to instances when speech’ substantially and materially’ disrupts a school’s educational mission, or when the speech impinges on the rights of other students to learn” (Davis 28-33) Coincidentally, this law only deals with on-campus speech, and the problem is that much of the cyberbullying happens at home or from mobile devices. I do believe that the common notion is to stop cyberbullying at the administrative level, but there is such an extreme grey area that the schools want to intervene but are reluctant. For example,
“in two cases with decisions released on the same day last year by two separate three-judge panels of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, the court reached opposite conclusions on whether a school violated students’ First Amendment rights by disciplining students who created separate defamatory and fake social-networking profiles of their respective principals” (Davis).
In these specific cases, J.S. v. Blue Mountain School District and Layshock ex. rel. Layshock v.Hermitage School District, students used off campus devices to create a fake social networking profile for the principal. In both case there was active student participation and an angry principal, eventually leading to suspension for both students. Both of these cases were taken to court, obviously by enraged students and parents. In the J.S. v. Blue Mountain School District case, the court ruled in favor of the school claiming they had a right to suspend the student. But, in the Layshock case, “the court found that the school district could not establish ‘a sufficient nexus’ between the student’s cyber speech and a substantial disruption of the school environment” (Davis). In extreme cases where cyberbullying has been taken to court, schools have often lost and it has created a reluctance to enforce policy and punishment on cyberbullying. Instead, schools tend to deal with it in a “case to case” manner, meaning most schools don’t have a specific policy and tend to only deal with it on a situational basis. The present issue is, “whether public schools have the legal authority to deal with actions that occur off premises, in off hours, at a non-school-sanctioned event,” says Parry Aftab, a lawyer who founded several Internet-safety organizations, including WiredSafety and Stopcyberbullying.org (Davis). In order to have some sort of starting point in handling these situations, schools already need to have their own policies enforced, rather than relying on the law to guide them. For example,
Figure 3
this school shown in Figure 3 has enacted a policy that gives them an option to remove the bullies from campus and transfer them to another school. If students are aware of this policy that the school enforces, they may be less likely to participate in cyberbullying knowing the consequences. Also, one of the other issues that schools are dealing with is holding the parents accountable. Education Weekly found after talking to Jason Briggs, principal of St. Gregory the Great School that, “One of the biggest challenges is parents who try to downplay the bullying as if it’s not occurring, and try to talk their way around it”. To achieve the greatest success in enforcing school policy is to have parents and school acting in harmony with one another. It is essential to inform parents about the school policies and answer any questions/concerns that they may have. Cyberbullying is a form of bullying that requires a unique and multi-disciplinary approach that requires new policy development and even teacher training (Cassidy, Brown, and Jackson.)
Cyberbullying Negatively Impacts Student’s Ability to Learn
It seems to be that the effect that cyberbullying can have on learning is often under-looked and again exemplifies another reason for school interference. The most important focus for school educators is to create an atmosphere to induce and promote positive learning. Research has shown that any form of off-line harassment has a wide range of detrimental effects on children. Academic difficulties include impaired concentration, reduced school marks, and absenteeism, but also there is an impact on the student’s mental and even physical health (Beran, Rinaldi, Bickham). The biggest issue that schools see relating to cyberbullying is school avoidance altogether.
In an article titled “Evidence for the need to support adolescents dealing with harassment and cyber-harassment: Prevalence, progression, and impact,” published by School Psychology International, they research whether cyberbullying continues after high school. The developmental stage of early adulthood (18-25) presents a time of identity exploration and self-focus and behaviors present at this stage may transition into adulthood. The extent to which both off-line and cyber-harassment continues from high school to university is not yet known, and this study aimed to find a continuity between the two. A total of 1,368 students from three universities in Canada and America participated in answering survey questions regarding rate of harassment, what types of harassment, and usage devices, etc. With little prior knowledge and research on the advancement of cyberbullying from high school to college they concluded that:
“Based on a large sample of Canadian and American university students, this study determined that victimization in high school is likely to transfer to the university setting. Moreover, the type of harassment experienced in high school significantly predicted the type experienced in university. Participants also reported a variety of negative effects of cyber-harassment, particularly anger and sadness” (Beran, Rinaldi, Bickham).
Evidence of this continuity in harassment would emphasize the importance of intervention at the high school level.
(Scholarly)
Cassidy, Wanda, Karen Brown, and Margaret Jackson. “‘Under the radar’: Educators and cyberbullying in schools.” School Psychology International. 33. (2012): n. page.
Cesaroni, Carla, Shahid Alvi, and Steven Downing. “Bullying Enters the 21st Century? Turning a Critical Eye to Cyberbullying Research.” Youth Justice. n. page. Print.
Cohen, Steve. Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972). MacGibbon and Kee Ltd.
Davis, Michelle R. “Schools Tackle Legal Twists and Turns of Cyberbullying.” Education Week. 4.02 28-33.
Marees, Nandoli Von, and Franz Petermann. “Cyberbullying: An increasing challenge for Schools.” School Psychology International. 33.467 (2012): n. page.
Menesini, Ersilia, Annalaura Nocentini, and Marina Camodeca. “Morality, values, traditional bullying, and cyberbullying in adolescence.” British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 31.Issue 1 1-14.
Parris, Leandra, Kris Varjas, Cutts Hayley, and Meyers Joel. “High School Students’ Perceptions of Coping With Cyberbullying.” Youth & Society. (2011): n. page.
William KR and Guerra NG (2007) Prevalence and predictors of internet bullying. Journal of Adolescent Health 41( 6 Suppl) : S14-21.
Original Sources :
Freeman, Kate. “Why You Should Talk to Kids About Cyberbullying.” Mashable. Mashable, 23 08 2012. Web. 21 Apr 2013. <http://mashable.com/2012/08/23/children-
Noce, Christina. “New York State to Pass First Cyberbullying Law.” YNN Rochester. Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC., 17 06 2012. Web. 2 Apr 2013.
Video Sources:
Bloomberg Law. “Fakhoury: NY Cyberbullying Law Could Violate Freedom of Speech.” Video. Youtube. Published Oct 13, 2011. April 19, 2013.
ChiaVideos. Amanda Todd’s Story: Struggling, Bullying, Suicide, Self Harm. Video. Youtube. Published on Oct 11, 2012. April 21, 2013.
kgbt4tv. “Cyber bullying in Schools”. Video. ValleyCentral. Barrington Broadcasting Group. 23 Aug 2012. 2 April 2013.
Emergent Media and Web Culture Research Papers 