Online Bullying: We Should Have Known

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Let's back it up

So what’s the deal with online bullying? I’m sure many of us growing up had those assemblies and school events to promote awareness of bullying and how to prevent it but now with the modern era has come modern bullying. I remember that when I was in school and saw bullying. I did what a sensible small kid would do. Nothing. I felt powerless and I could never stand up to a bully. I didn’t really care about what was morally correct because I would be destroyed in a confrontation.

But now times have changed. There seems to be more care taken to educate students on how to respond to a bully. A one-time assembly would certainly not do wonders in eliminating bullying, despite what the teachers may have thought. It seems based on the article that old trends stay the same. From the Linda Craig Johnson article and data above, boys are more likely to bully and be bullied themselves than girls and the intervention rate remains quite low. For the brave souls who do intervene in their fellow classmates being bullied, the reasons and fears are not new either. If it was a situation “morally wrong” they would intervene and the biggest reason for not doing so is that no change would occur. I am sure that anyone who has been through middle school could tell you the same. Not surprising, to say the least. However, an intriguing point is made in that online bullying is much more difficult to pin down, find and prevent. Anonymous intervention can occur but anonymous bullying can occur as well.

What Can We Do? Why Protection of Course!

The large looming question is: How can we even define bullying? Does an anonymous YouTube comment count? Is posting a controversial topic that is relevant in the news count? There is so much exposure that students are bound to be sensitive to certain things. Bullying was simpler a few decades ago. Verbal and physical bullying was very easily spotted and it was easier to see who was the bully and how to have them properly dealt with. If students are crafty, it would be almost impossible to even pin down who is responsible. Just a few of the many nuances currently applicable to the issue of bullying. This raises the question of what bullying education/prevention should look like. The conventional method of showing what bullying looks like and telling students to tell a teacher or an adult just isn’t effective. The advice of “ignore your bullies and they will go away” seems equally poor. What I reckon schools need is the development of a safe online activity class or series of talks to tell students how to manage, block or restrict who can comment/message them on various platforms. What we should absolutely NOT do is encroach on a student’s privacy even if they are suspected of being an online bully. Giving students coping mechanisms and knowledge to control their online presence will be the best that a school can do barring certain scenarios. Social media and online presences should not be avoided or sold to children as "bad", but building these safety measures like we would in any other potentially harmful situation is a necessity.

I have linked a video below that explains some of the ways we can be safer online. May it help you!

-Your friend,

Mike