This paper is about cyber bullying. I am a 24 year old university student and I am studying so that I can work with young people.

I’ve written a paper on cyber bullying for my university course. Bev asked me to share it with all of you who read this newsletter, and please share it if you know someone who needs to read this; anyone who needs help. I am thrilled to have everyone read it. This is a condensed version of my paper, but I hope it helps you or your family or a friend.

Cyberbullying – sometimes known as online bullying, online harassment, or electronic bullying, has become a major cause of students having problems at school, psychological harm, and in some cases even suicide. Such bullying can involve online fighting, harassment, stalking, inpersonification, outing, trickery, and exclusion by using a variety of social media. As this is such a rapidly changing new area, little research has been completed in it.

The internet provides aggressors with anonymity, and by using a variety of social media, the ability to have far wider dissemination of the abuse, then is possible with regular bullying.

It is naive to think that adults, let alone teenagers concerned with the complexities of adolescence, can simply turn off their internet connections when confronted with anything in life, let alone cyberbullying. The internet is such a major part of life, and that is only going to grow further in the future. The role models in life that young people can usually trust, that is parents and teachers, are the most responsible for getting them involved in the internet. Recently this has only increased because of the growth of cell phones. How could these well meaning adults have known that such a wonderful tool for education and life causes so much pain for the young people they want to protect?

Canadians have been brought up to believe in the right to freedom of opinion and the right to express those opinions in a way that honours the rights of all members of our multi-cultural society. Everyone has the right to enjoy their lives, and to express their individuality either publically, or anonymously, In recent years the internet has crept into, and become a fundamental part of, our daily lives and we honour the right to such freedom of expression. The dilemma for democratic countries is how to deal with such anonymous freedom of expression over the internet, when it causes such social problems as pornography, incitement of sexual and racial violence, and cyberbullying. If we take an authoritarian solution and censor the internet, we would violate important principals in society. Therefore it is important that all democratic countries work toward solutions to these problems within our democratic framework.

Intuitively, when we think of cyberbullying, our assumption is that the seeds of the problem lie in social situations. It would be easy to think that solutions to the problem could be found within the school systems; however this is not the case. Most cyber bullying takes place in hours away from school, and because of this teachers may be reluctant to be at the front of efforts to deal with it. Most cyberbullying is anonymous, and freedom of expression over the internet is a difficult subject to take on as a school teacher. Education about the internet should be taking place at schools, but studies have pointed out that fewer than 50% of the teachers surveyed were in favour of a formal cyber bullying program. Rather they would prefer pre-emptive programs aimed at reducing the chance of cyber bullying with increased parental involvement warning students about the consequences of cyber bullying, and for society to increase consequences for cyber bullying behaviour.

A study was done in 2010 on student beliefs and behaviours in Canadian high school grades 7-12. The findings were scary. The study reported that 80% of the students that had been cyberbullied would not report it to their counsellors, teachers, or parents. This is because students felt no one would believe them, would or could do anything to stop it, they might get into trouble, it would get worse or they would be made fun of and their parents might restrict their use of technology. Students felt that friends could help reduce cyber victim’s anxiety and help them cope. But many felt it was necessary for them to learn to deal with cyberbullying themselves. It has been suggested that there is a big need for help lines, and perhaps anonymous suggestion boxes in schools and communities. Another suggestion is that it is important for adults to keep pace with new technology use by their children. Students say that it is unrealistic for people to think that they can just switch off their internet and walk away from whatever is being said about them. Young people are nothing if not social, and it would appear that there is a very strong need for interventions to occur at the teacher level, with students themselves, and with parents.

It is recommended that a multi-dimensional approach to such a pervasive problem might be the best solution. At schools proactive policies, procedures, and practices with teachers, parents, and community workers to create a protective school environment and a healthy school.

The challenges facing many of us is that there are very rapidly changing technology. However, if we maintain a multi-dimensional approach with cyber bullying and all associated problems like internet addiction, we stand a chance of creating a safer environment. Advising young people to switch off the internet, and then hope the problem goes away won’t work.

Thank you for reading my paper. This is a huge problem, and my fear is that it is escalating. I hope this helps someone out there or I hope there is a spark of an idea in this paper for someone.

Thank you.

Holly