It makes sense that girls would be more affected by cyberbullying than boys (not that it doesn't happen to both genders). Cyberbullying is primarily relational bullying -- it takes place online, which for today's teens, is the most social of social spaces. Instead of rumor being whispered in the hallway at school, it now is copied, pasted and forwarded. Boys tend to deal with their issues more directly and sometimes through physical fighting.

The Pew Internet & Amercan Life Project just released their latest research on cyberbullying. In one section, the report asks whether social networks facilitate cyberbullying because teens on these sites say they are cyberbullied more than teens who do not use social networking sites. I just think teens' real world social lives have gone virtual on sites like MySpace or Facebook -- where there are friends, there will be drama.

The Pew Report is not so different than the Harris study I blogged about awhile back in that it acknowledges cyberbullying is a real problem, but that teens are not viewing it as being as much of a problem as offline harassment. This is because in most cases where someone is being harassed online, teens can ignore, block or report the person on the other end of the instant message or MySpace account.

What's most interesting to me in this report is the reality that once you make something digital it's very hard to prevent it from being copied, forwarded or misused in some way if someone has it out for you, and that most teens are still shocked that certain photos or communications that were meant to be private turn up in incidents of harassment or bullying. According to the report, "one in 6 teens (15%) told us someone had forwarded or posted communication they assumed was private."

Pew also found that older teen girls (15-17) are more likely to report cyberbullying. So while I would guess it's probably happening at a higher rate with tween girls, they're just not reporting it. This makes sense since younger girls are still figuring out their place in the social hierarchy and may be afraid that reporting it will make life even worse for them. It's also probably happening to them more on instant messenger than social networking sites.

Most telling were the quotes from middle school girls talking about bullying -- just as the rumor changes with each retelling, words that are typed can be easily altered or manipulated:

"Just copy and paste whatever somebody says," a middle school girl explains as she describes online bullying tactics. "You have to watch what you say..." counsels another middle school girl. "If that person's at their house and if you say something about them and you don't know they're there or if you think that person's your friend and you trust them and you're like, 'Oh, well, she's really being annoying,' she could copy and paste and send it to [anyone]..." Another middle school girl describes how the manipulation of digital materials can be used to hurt someone. "Like I was in a fight with a girl and she printed out our conversation, changed some things that I said, and brought it into school, so I looked like a terrible person."

Here are some great resources you can use to learn about and prevent relational bullying among girls:

Girls Bullying Girls (from the National Association of School Psychologists)
Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls
Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence
Girlfighting: Betrayal and Rejection among Girls
Hardy Girls Healthy Women
Respect Rx

Posted by anastasia at 4:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There has been a lot of attention paid to the damage cyberbullying can do (I've written about it here and in Totally Wired), but just as it can be meaner than bullying in person, it can also be easier to block or ignore. I think this is important to remember. I first realized this when I read through the responses of the survey I posted on Tagged.com -- over 2,000 teens responded to a bunch of my questions including one about whether they had ever been harassed online. I got answers like:

"Yep, this girl was mad because I was talking to a boy she liked. I just ignored it."

"I haven't, but some of my friends have. They just closed their email account and made up a new one."

"yes a boy continued to call me a b***h and I just blocked him and I was never bothered again"

You get the idea. Harris Interactive and The National Crime Prevention Council teamed up for research on cyberbullying (.pdf) and found that while it is happening (43 percent of the students they interviewed reported having been "cyberbullied" in the past year), 61 percent of males and 52 percent of females said they were "not bothered by it." Teens view this issue as something that can be controlled by either just not responding, blocking the bully or through moderators intervening online. To them, it's not an issue schools should be addressing. Tell that to the teachers who have to break up a fight in the schoolyard that started online.

Still, I think this research is important because it shows how the media has focused on the worst of these types of incidents (sexually explicit videos being spread around, vile MySpace "slambook" pages posted meant to ruin a teen or teacher's reputation, etc.). And while this stuff does happen, sometimes to the point where teens are forced to switch schools or even move, the majority of peer-to-peer bullying is something teens feel like they can manage or handle themselves. Cyberbullying is still an issue, and is a bigger problem than "stranger danger," but outside of the more extreme cases, it appears to be an issue teens believe they have under control. Oh and the number one reason teens think other teens cyberbully? "Because it's funny." I talk about "the culture of mean" in Totally Wired -- teens get this from popular culture. Think about it when you watch the next round of "American Idol" auditions.

Posted by anastasia at 2:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This week I spoke at Cody's Books in Berkeley and was struck when the 17-year-old employee who was helping with the event shared that kids at Berkeley High had posted a fight video on YouTube. She was so matter of fact and almost blase about it. When I asked her what she thought they were thinking when they posted it, she said, "only that a couple of people would see it."

The searchability factor seems to be completely lost to teens when they post inappropriate stuff online. Because most of the communicating they do online is with friends they know offline, they forget that anyone else can also find these conversations, MySpace pages or videos. Of course the Cody's teen told me the teens who posted the fight video are being sued by the victim's family. Ugh.

Speaking of lawsuits, it definitely seems like this stuff is beginning to play out in court. USA Today reported that "a judge violated a juvenile's free-speech rights when he placed her on probation for posting an expletive-laden entry on MySpace criticizing a school principal, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled." More from the story:

In February 2006, Greencastle Middle School Principal Shawn Gobert discovered a Web page on MySpace purportedly created by him. A.B., who did not create the page, made derogatory postings on it concerning the school's policy on body piercings.

The state filed a delinquency petition in March alleging that A.B.'s acts would have been harassment, identity deception and identity theft if committed by an adult. The juvenile court dropped most of the charges but in June found A.B. to be a delinquent child and placed her on nine months of probation. The judge ruled the comments were obscene.

A.B. appealed, arguing that her comments were protected political speech under both the state and federal constitutions because they dealt with school policy.

I also spotted this item about a principal who is suing former students for a fake MySpace page the posted about him:

MySpaces profile under the name of a former Pennsylvania high school principal depicted Eric Trosch as a hard-drinking, skirt-chasing pornography lover who thinks sex with students should be legalized. Not quite. The ex-Hickory High School principal claims four of his former students posted the phony profile, which hurt his reputation and left him embarrassed and humiliated. Now he’s suing those ex-students. The Court of Common Pleas lawsuit, as reported by TheSmokingGun.com, claims the students defamed Trosch by posting a series of MySpace pages about him over several days in December 2005. Trosch is now principal of Hermitage Middle School. With the help of MySpace, he was able to have the fake profiles deleted within a few days of their posting online, according to the complaint.

It pains me that principals are suing students rather than being able to resolve this outside of the legal system. I have a feeling that these students won't be protected under free speech, since they were defaming his character.

Remember you can talk about these issues with other parents in the BlogSafety Forum.

Posted by anastasia at 3:35 AM | Permalink

The other day I read a reporter's query looking for experts to explain (from a psychological perspective) why teens who seemingly never get into trouble are now posting bullying videos on YouTube or other inappropriate content online. It's as if the reporter's working theory was that "the internet made me do it." I don't believe any teen who is getting into trouble online wouldn't be getting into trouble offline. It's just that when you do it online, the public nature of the internet means more people know about it.

Last week, a company called Teenage Research Unlimited released the results of a survey that found "more than a third of the teens questioned for the survey said a boyfriend or girlfriend had harassed them with text messages, and a quarter said their partner had used a cell phone, e-mail, blog or Web chat to insult them." According to Reuters, "the survey was released at the launch of the loveisrespect.org, The National Teen Dating Abuse Hotline, an Internet and telephone service to help teenagers involved in abusive relationships."

Ironically, another research company, Harris Interactive, also released a survey (.pdf) arguing that most teens get when it's appropriate to use technology to communicate about sensitive issues and when it's not. Two in three youth would not break up with someone and two in five would not argue with a friend over phones, email, instant messaging, text messaging or social networking sites. I wonder if there is a gap between teens saying they "realize that communication tools may not be the best avenue of discussion" and actually replacing these tools with a phone call or in person conversations.

My take is just that teens are teens, sometimes they are impulsive and inappropriate. And with dating violence, technology just offers teens another tool to manipulate and control a victim. The biggest challenge for parents and educators in being able to use teen mistakes as teachable moments is that you often don't hear about them. The Teen Research Unlimited study pointed out that "most victims of the abuse are reluctant to discuss it with their parents." Here's why:

Asked about why they had not told their parents about the abusive behavior, nearly half said the problem was not serious, and more than a quarter said they feared losing access to the technology, either cell phone or computer, the survey said.

This applies to anything that goes awry in cyberspace. If they fear the punishment is losing access, teens will most likely not talk to you about what's going on. I would suggest telling your teens they can always talk to you about what's happening in their lives, online and off. Preempt their fear by encouraging them to tell you when bad things happen online and letting them know that you won't take away their access to technology. Depending on the severity of the situation, you may get more involved in their technology use (if they are being bullied, change their email address, IM names, report the incident to your internet service provider, etc.), but even if they are the ones screwing up, tell them you won't cut them off (at least not forever).

In sort of related news:

There's always "better parenting through technology" with new software being developed to allow parents to set detailed parameters on their children's phone use. And AT&T/Cingular is also offering parental controls for wireless.

Update: Rick emailed to say: "I would like to offer a partial answer to your question of why teens who never get in trouble, send offensive e-mail/make offensive videos. There is a certain anonymity present on the Web (we encourage it even to protect the kids). Behind this anonymity, teens feel free to act other than what they normally would.

Just as a historical perspective, one of the comments about the Civil War soldiers who first joined the army, they acted in a manner completely opposite to what they would do at home (gambling, cursing, drinking, other stuff). The anonymity afforded by being a part of a large group of men in a location far from home, removed the restraints from their inhibitions (much like the Internet-although that's pushing the analogy a bit).

It's one of the paradoxes of the Internet, "avatars" protect our kids' security but by the same token, the anonymity allows the kids to act in ways that jeopardizes the security of others."

Posted by anastasia at 11:24 PM | Permalink

I'm a big supporter of the concept of citizen journalism. But having gone to journalism school and worked in the profession, I realize there are a lot of ethical issues the average person with a camera phone may not be pondering. Most people, and especially teenagers with camera phones, video cameras or web cams don't even consider themselves "citizen journalists," yet the growing ubiquity of these devices and number of public video sites to distribute them on is creating a host of issues for parents, teachers and even entire countries.

I'm referring to the cell phone video taken of Saddam Hussein's hanging. It was obviously taken to unofficially distribute the images to the world, and as a result, has only deepened the sectarian conflict in Iraq. It even prompted one child in Pakistan to imitate the hanging resulting in his death. It's a large scale example of an issue that is actually being played out on a daily basis with teens, parents and teachers. Teens are recording fights, sexual exploits and their teachers and posting them on sites like YouTube. Sometimes it's using a hidden camera and sometimes the teens being recorded will actively participate at the time, not realizing it will be broadcast or shared later.

Today the New York Times posted a story about a web cam community called Stickam. It's pretty fear mongering in its tone, but just as with any camera, including web cams, the possibility for abuse exists. In Stickam's case the fear is more around adults interacting with teens in a sexual way using web cam chat. Any teen who is engaging in web cam related sexual activity with adults is obviously at risk and has some issues. I think it's important to talk to teens about the power of images -- both moving and still when they have any type of recording equipment (that includes cell phones).

I found this list of questions that the Sarasota Herald-Tribune uses when discussing whether or not to run a controversial image:

* What are the alternatives: Can another photo convey the same message and eliminate the concerns?
* Is possession of the technical capability to alter a photograph justifying the proposed manipulation?
* Is all of the necessary information available for discussion: Story and photo readily available?
* Is there any missing information from the photograph?
* What is the news value of the particular photograph?
* Are there legal or ethical concerns about running the photo?
* Who might be offended and why?
* What are the possible consequences of publishing the photo?
* Will we be able to justify our decision?

Obviously publishing news photos is a different decision making process than a teen would go through before deciding to post an image. When I worked at Oxygen and at Current TV, we had to get releases for pretty much everyone we recorded for broadcast. For minors that included releases from a parent or guardian. I think it's worth talking about the moral, legal and ethical issues of recording someone for whatever reason and publishing or uploading an image or footage. I would adapt the questions from the Sarasota Herald and talk to teens about asking themselves the following questions before distributing any images they have taken or recorded of their peers:

* Who might be offended and why?
* Would the individual(s) in my photos or video want their image posted on a public site like MySpace or YouTube?
* What are the possible consequences of publishing the photo or video?
* Am I ok with other people potentially downloading, sharing or altering these photos for their own purposes and potentially being online forever?

My guess is that when teens begin to ask these types of questions, we'll see a little less impulsive uploading and a lot less drama.

Posted by anastasia at 6:31 PM | Permalink

I have become an avid watcher of the NBC drama "Friday Night Lights." I loved the movie -- and I love the show. This type of movie to TV show love is rare. I would say I felt similar about "Fame" (though I loved the movie more) and "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," though I loved the show more.

For the uninitiated, "Friday Night Lights," is a drama set in a small Texas town where almost everyone's lives seem to revolve around high school football. The show has a storyline about the star quarterback, who was paralyzed in a football accident, and his devoted girlfriend, who of course is a cheerleader. She was incredibly devoted to her injured beau, barely leaving his bedside, until she ended up sleeping with his best friend, who was crippled by survivor guilt and hadn't even visited the quarterback in the hospital since his accident.

In last week's episode, the school is abuzz about how "Lyla" the cheerleader, betrayed "Jason," the injured quarterback, with his best friend and bad boy "Tim," who is also on the football team. There is a scene where a parent approaches Lyla's father to apologize for a website his daughter put up calling Lyla a slut. We then get to see Lyla in her room looking at the same site. This is a form of cyberbullying Nancy Willard refers to as denigration, or sending or posting cruel gossip or rumors about a person to damage his or her reputation of friendships. Of course the whispers and isolation are happening offline, too, but the website is the final blow that pushes Lyla to quit the squad (her fellow cheerleaders failing to catch her in a basket toss may have influenced her decision as well).

Nobody got in trouble for the offending website, it was really worked out between the two fathers, and Lyla was encouraged by Tim to keep cheering (and basically keep her head up), and it all seems to die down. It's interesting to see this type of teen drama reflected in teen TV drama.

Posted by anastasia at 6:07 PM | Permalink

I wrote about this before in Think Before You Post. This time the incident involved Canadian students provoking a teacher and then recording him losing his temper. They posted the video on YouTube (it was removed later at the request of the school board). From the New York Times article:

"Two students who attend the equivalent of Grade 9 at a school in Gatineau, Quebec, a city across the river from Ottawa, were sent home last week after officials learned that they had posted a videotape of a teacher losing his temper on YouTube. The episode was not spontaneous. A girl, who has not been identified, provoked the teacher while a boy secretly taped the encounter with a compact video camera.

YouTube removed the video at the request of the Portages-de-l'Outaouais school board a week ago, the board president Jocelyn Blondin said. But that has left the question of determining what to do with the students and how to prevent similar episodes in the future.

While Mr. Blondin declined to name the teacher, he said that the man is a 33-year veteran who specialized in teaching students with learning disabilities. The teacher is now on voluntary sick leave, and officials at his union say that he is so embarrassed that he may never return to class."

We're going to continue to see incidents like this happening at school as long as teachers and administrators are not proactive about understanding how students are using (and sometimes abusing) technology. But understanding is only the first step, next comes developing a curriculum that emphasizes online ethics and information literacy. And finally, there needs to be policies put in place to address these incidents when they happen in ways that are fair and consistent.

If any teachers reading work at schools who have developed such a curriculum or a policy, I encourage you to post a comment about your experience or email me and I'll post it online.

Posted by anastasia at 7:37 PM | Permalink

MyDeathSpace (where MySpace profiles live on as shrines to the deceased...) (via an article in The New York Sun)

- YALSA podcasts (not only are young adult librarians setting up shop in the virtual world of Teen Second Life, they're also recording podcasts with teens and librarians)

- Cyberbullying on the rise (in South Korean - where the social networking site CyWorld is huge)

- 'Own Your Own Space' (Computer company Symantec puts out a book for parents and teens on Internet safety)

- Teen 'text speak' allowed... (on exams in New Zealand) (Textually)

- Behind Bebo (check out this Ypulse interview with an executive from Bebo.com, one of the fastest growing social networks that teens are hanging out on)

- Crossing the Digital Divide (a new blog by Internet safety expert Ken Leebow)

Posted by anastasia at 9:29 PM | Permalink

We all remember the nasty words etched into the bathroom stalls at school. It was usually an outward expression of girl-to-girl warfare. The same words were also passed in notes or traveled like the game "telephone," where children would whisper the latest news to each other, mangling the truth as it moved from one person to the next. Today the bathroom wall has gone digital, and teens are able to spread gossip about each other online. While it's just as anonymous as the unauthored handwriting in the girls room, it's way more public when it's on a commercial web site and way more viral - traveling at the speed of copy, paste and send bulletin on MySpace.

We've also heard about lists -- who slept with who, the prettiest, ugliest, most likely to be gay. Teens will sit down together and make them. According to USA Today, police are looking for someone in Athens, GA, who decided to make a list of teen hookups and post them on an anonymous MySpace profile. Just like the "Burn Book" in the teen flick "Mean Girls," once the list spread, students argued with one another, disrupting classes. And just like the Burn Book was a group effort, my guess is that it was a couple of teens who worked together on this particular MySpace list.

Of course the email on the MySpace profile was an anonymous Yahoo! account. Lt. David Kilpatrick, from the Oconee County Sheriff's Department, said he would subpoena BellSouth, the Internet service provider used to create the e-mail address, to try to determine who paid for the Internet service. And while gossip itself is not a crime, if they find the student(s), he or she could be expelled, face lawsuits from the parents of the students named in the list, etc.

Posting these types of lists online or any type of embarrassing photos or video (whether the subject is waving a Star Wars light saber or in a compromising sexual position) is a tactic used in cyberbullying. Nancy Willard, the executive director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, describes the most common tactics used in cyberbullying as flaming, harassment and cyber stalking, impersonation, denigration and outing. What happened in Georgia is a classic example of outing or sharing someone's secret or embarrassing information online. It's important to use these stories as examples when talking to teens about how to be ethical online, and to explain that the consequences of doing what we used to do on the bathroom wall on a public website like MySpace will be much harsher. Have your teens told you about someone being outed online? Share your experience in the comments.

More cyberbullying resources:
Stop Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying.org

Plus all of the Internet Safety Resources listed on the right hand side of the blog have sections on cyberbullying.

Posted by anastasia at 12:08 AM | Permalink