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For this month’s YAB series, we asked our Ypulse Youth Advisory Board members to take on the topic of digital identities. Below Canadian teen Amanda Aziz starts us off by sharing her thoughts on cyberbullying, an issue that has unfortunately been making headlines lately with anonymous abuse on sites like Formspring.me and the recent Phoebe Prince suicide case. As experts and educators in the online safety space continue to work on developing effective resources for teens and tweens to educate themselves, we thought it would be refreshing to hear from the front lines.

Also, check out Anastasia’s Totally Wired resources and feel free to add any great anti-bullying resources in the comments. Be sure to check out the free End Bullying Now teleseminar held by former Ypulse Mashup keynote speaker Josh Shipp and teen life strategist Brooke Gibbs as well.

What We’re Learning About Bullying In The Digital Age

While bullying happens today in bathrooms, classrooms and, yes, chat rooms (or IM boxes), it has happened for decades. There have always been popular mean girls and guys even when there wasn’t texting involved. Gossip and harassment is not a new phenomenon. However, technology does add new aspects to the problem that adults may not understand, and when it involves documented cases of teens emotionally abusing a peer to the point of telling them to go kill themselves, it also raises legal and ethical questions. Bullying may not disappear, but that does not mean that parents, educators and teens can’t make adjustments.

Before there was digital harassment, teens would be able to escape bullying when school was over. Adding elements like Facebook and texting, teens not only get bullied in school, but also at home or wherever… they can basically get bullied 24/7. It also doesn’t help that with social networks like Facebook, Twitter and the new, anonymous teen space formspring.me, the harassment is made public to the victim’s peers. It’s humiliation compounded by public scrutiny. At least with Facebook, you know who is attacking you and have the ability to confront or report the offender, but with formspring.me, the identity of the bully is kept private. This has been an attraction for people who want an outlet to lash out at others (i.e., angry or extremely unhappy teens), because with their identity secret, there is no way of getting blamed for their comments, no matter how brutal. Even though not all of us would choose to use the service that way, it’s a set up that is very appealing to bullies.

As teens and parents continue to deal with bullying in all its forms, these interactions on social networks have become a hot button issue for parents and adults. Episodes like the recent Phoebe Prince suicide case, where a 15 year old was bullied in school and online, have prompted social networking sites to create stronger safety policies. Take Facebook’s new Safety Center which “contains resources for parents, teens, educators and law enforcement on personal safety and how we respond to objectionable content or unwanted contact in the rare case that it occurs on Facebook” along with answers to questions like ‘What should I do if I am receiving unwanted messages or wall posts?’ and more specifically, “How do I report abusive behavior from a friend on Facebook?” I applaud these attempts to make social networking a safer place for all. I’ve heard some say that this new level of monitoring takes away the freedom to say whatever they want on Facebook for fear of getting reported to “Big Brother.” But as a teen who has gone through cyberbullying in the past, I don’t think it’s “Big Brother” at all. We have the right to say what we want, but we also have the right to be protected, and these instructions let teens protect themselves. This is important because cyberbullying is a lot harder to stop, as teachers and parents have less control in that space to confront bullies, so there should be some limits to what people do online.

One aspect of cyberbullying that makes it so appealing to teens is how the media sometimes portrays cyberbullying as a juicy revenge tool with no realistic consequences. Take “90210″ for example when Naomi sends the whole school a sext message of Annie just to ruin Annie’s reputation. The drama makes it seem like an easy way to make high school life more exciting. With so many young adults not believing that cyberbullying is harassment, maybe it is because TV shows like this have contributed to their desensitization to it. If the non-extreme version of this behavior seems so normal and intriguing in popular media, then shouldn’t it be normal in real life? Maybe with increased awareness from parents and other adults along with tools like the Facebook Safety Center, we’ll all be able to identify what counts as “kids being kids” and what crosses the line.

About Amanda

Being a true believer in the Socratic Method (no, seriously) and a 16 year-old high school junior living in London, Ontario, Canada, Amanda believes that asking questions might just get her somewhere. Even when it comes to finding her way out of the superficial labyrinth that is known as school, she is not one who refrains from a challenge. Reading novels and asking questions are what satisfies her need to learn, and to get insight on different cultures (and pop culture!), languages (she hopes to be fluent in seven… good luck with that) to International Law/Social Justice and trends. Though she has many interests, she insists that music, hiding in the library at lunch time, volunteering, being a member of Junior Achievement, making insanely bad jokes, and wishing at 11:11 to be the “few” staples she can always rely on. Another passion of hers? Writing- whether it is songs, poetry or stories, which is why Amanda is so excited to be a member of the YAB for Ypulse. Maybe asking questions might just get her somewhere after all?

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Categorized under: Education, Web, Youth Advisory Board

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