By now many of us have heard the news that a Massachusetts girl committed suicide after being relentlessly bullied by her peers; the bullies, nine teenagers, were charged with, according to the New York Times, “a different mix of felony charges that include statutory rape, violation of civil rights with bodily injury, harassment, stalking and disturbing a school assembly.” Bullying is on the rise, both in the “real” world and in cyberspace, and adults, including law enforcement officials and legislators, are stepping up their efforts to deal with this crisis.
What can parents and educators do to help ease the problem?
Common Sense Media offers a comprehensive guide to combatting cyberbullying, with practical tips, advice, and answers to common questions. Check out their site and pass the link on to a friend. Together we can help adults educate kids about responsible, compassionate behavior, online and off.
Interesting opinion piece in the New York Times, written by Tufts University professor of child development David Elkind. Elkind suggests that the rise in bullying among children correlates with the rise in children’s immersion in the wired world; because children are more active online than in the “real world” of person-to-person socialization, he says, they have lost the ability to interact civilly with one another on a personal level.
I find this intriguing because typically Internet safety experts tell parents and educators to teach children to behave online as they would in real life – appropriately, respectfully. What seems to be a given there is that kids know what is appropriate and respectful offline, in “real life” — Elkind is saying that we shouldn’t make that assumption. Kids are bullying more online AND offline, and we adults need to teach them explicitly what is appropriate in both “worlds.”
As Elkind concludes:
Friedrich Fröbel, the inventor of kindergarten, said that children need to “learn the language of things” before they learn the language of words. Today we might paraphrase that axiom to say that children need to learn the real social world before they learn the virtual one.
How can we — parents and educators — teach children to practice appropriate social-tech behavior? What guidelines can we use? What rules can we enforce?
It would be nice to have clear answers to those questions — and I believe they exist — but there seems to be more confusion than clarity on the subject of what constitutes “appropriate” social-tech behavior. In theory many adults can differentiate between what’s acceptable and what’s rude, but in practice rude seems to rule. Increasingly adults seem to be modeling inappropriate social-tech behavior — making it harder for parents and educators to guide young children. And etiquette isn’t the only issue — there are developmental, educational, and health concerns to consider. Can multi-tasking students learn and develop (mentally, socially, emotionally) as well as those who aren’t distracted by laptops and smart phones?
Two recent articles take on these topics: one, in the Washington Post, about whether or not teachers should ban laptops in classrooms, and the other, in Slate, on the rules of social-tech etiquette. The Post piece ends on a not-so-hopeful note: ”[UVA professor Siva] Vaidhyanathan, an Internet scholar, senses a losing battle. In an era of iPhones and BlackBerrys, Internet-ready cellphones have become just as prevalent in classrooms as laptops, and equally capable of distraction. If professors had hoped to hermetically seal their teaching space by banning laptops, they might be about three years too late.”
And the Slate article ends with no conclusion, only more questions, thrown out to the reading public: ”That’s where you come in, dear readers. Perhaps the best way to solve the problem of the Internet’s intrusion into our daily lives is to use the Internet’s power of collaborative thinking. Let’s work together to come up with a concise, easy-to-understand, and logical rule that anyone could apply in any social situation to determine when to reach for the phone and when to keep it hidden in the deepest recesses of one’s pocket or purse.” Might be worth checking back to see if Slate readers come up with any worthwhile suggestions.
As the Internet evolves, so will our rules — and disagreements about rules — regarding its integration into our lives. Maybe in this Web 2.0 (3.0?) world the paradigm of adults teaching kids won’t quite work — maybe we’ll all be learning together.
As parents and educators, we worry about children who spend too much of their days in front of a screen — a TV, computer, or smartphone. According to a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, kids ages 8-18 spend 10 hours and 45 minutes per week “media multi-tasking,” and the result for many is a decline in grades and an uptick in troubled behavior.
To help combat this trend, parents are urged to limit their kids’ online activity and to model responsible use of technology themselves. But what happens if the parents themselves can’t kick the habit of being online all the time?
The Washington Post features a story about these very “grown-ups,” who spend more time online than in “real” life. The result? Obsessive behavior, fraying relationships and troubled marriages, says the Post, which offers an explanation but not an excuse for the addictive behavior: ”…human beings tend to repeat actions that are pleasurable and rewarding, particularly if they get our endorphins flowing. The complication is that we devalue delayed rewards — the feeling, for instance, of looking back on lovely moments with family — in favor of the immediacy of the new. In this case, it’s data. It makes us high.”
The Post piece leaves us with a measure of hope: “Nobody knows where this is all headed. Jaron Lanier, one of the creators of virtual reality technology and author of “You Are Not a Gadget,” hopes all these advances will create greater appreciation of the physical world. ‘It might take a while,” he said, “but one day, I hope we notice that reality is much more textured and interesting.’”
Here’s the scenario: a high school student, upset with her teacher, creates a Facebook page dedicated to criticizing that teacher. The school suspends her for three days, citing cyberbullying. The student claims this violates her First Amendment rights and goes to court. The principal asks that the court dismiss the case. But the court rules that indeed the suspension did impinge on the girl’s rights and she is now free to pursue a lawsuit against the school, seeking a “nominal fee” and the erasure of the suspension from her record.
The case, covered in this New York Times article, highlights the difficulties facing educators who try to balance freedom of speech issues with Internet safety concerns. How can educators protect students and staff from harmful online behavior while at the same time make sure that students and staff are free to express themselves? Can any one law or policy help guide educators, or does this all need to be dealt with on a case by case basis?
bNetS@vvy is a proud outreach partner of the new PBS Frontline production “Digital Nation,” a documentary by filmmaker Rachel Dretzin (“Growing Up Online”). The documentary, airing Tuesday, Feb. 2 on PBS, explores, among other topics, the challenges of parenting in a digital age and the benefits of teaching with technology. It’s an exciting and informative film, backed up by dazzling online resources, including digital workshops for parents and educators. Without further ado, bNetS@vvy presents guest blogger Rachel Dretzin, on “parenting digital natives.”
Because I’ve spent the last three years making documentaries for PBS “FRONTLINE” about life in the digital age, I’m asked all the time what rules I have for my own three children when it comes to the internet.
The answer is… not many.
The more I look for answers about what we actually know about the effects of the online world on kids, the more I realize that we know virtually nothing. We’re at the very beginning of a gigantic social revolution that is transforming our minds, our hearts, and our families… and science hasn’t caught up yet. We don’t know how the internet is affecting our brains, or how much time online is too much time, or whether gaming is good or bad, or whether reading printed books will turn out to be essential in the 21st century. The answers just aren’t out there, and anyone who tells you that they are is lying.
Even the things that the so-called experts tell you to worry about as a parent are constantly changing. Three years ago, when I first started reporting this story, everyone was worried about predators. Kids unwittingly putting their personal information online, only to be snatched by stalkers who’d been tracking them for months. Kids lured into meeting a stranger who they’ve been duped into thinking is their age. Kids falling in love with a virtual friend who turns out not to be a friend at all.
But these days, most people tracking these things agree that predator danger has been vastly exaggerated. Now we worry more about other things: about cyberbullying, about our kids posting something on Facebook that will come back to haunt them, or about them playing so many hours of a video game that the rest of their life begins to fall apart.
In the course of making my latest FRONTLINE documentary, “Digital Nation,” I’ve spoken to college professors who bemoan their students’ habit of facebooking and googling during lectures. They talk about kids whose papers are constructed as a series of unrelated paragraphs that don’t have much to do with each other, because the kids got distracted while writing them. I’ve met young people who have more of a life in the virtual world than in the real one, and a 83-year-old woman who gained a new lease on life by creating an online cooking show. I’ve been amazed by what the digital world can give us, and terrified by what it’s capable of taking away.
Most importantly, I’ve watched these issues play out in my own life and the lives of my children. It’s getting harder to pay singular attention to each other, harder to switch off that buzz in our brains telling us to “check in” with our digital technology, whether it be phone or laptop or ipod. It’s getting harder to do one thing at a time when you have the option of doing eight. And it’s really hard to see the value of just being still.
I don’t want my kids to grow up in a world where there’s no time to push the pause button and reflect. And as a member of one of the last generations that remembers what life was like beforedigital technology, I see it as my duty to teach them the value of a certain kind of attention.
So instead of placing a bunch of arbitrary rules on my children’s use of technology, I talk to them. I talk to them about my own struggles to manage my relationship with my iphone and my laptop. I talk to them about my fears, but I don’t conceal the excitement I feel about all that technology is bringing to their lives.
Over the past year, we’ve posted clips and interviews on our website (www.pbsdigitalnation.org), and welcomed your contributions and feedback. Now, this coming Tuesday, February 2nd, we’re broadcasting the Digital Nation documentary on PBS. I’ll consider the film a success if people turn off the television after it’s done and argue with each other for an hour, or if they feel compelled to come online and share their opinions. After you watch next week, please come to the site and let us know your thoughts, or, your own experiences with digital life, by sharing a video or joining a roundtable discussion.
Feeling guilty about letting your child play computer games, watch TV, and use a smart phone? Trying to balance your concerns about safety with your desire to let your kids enjoy themselves (and your desire to get a break yourself)? Then check out the following.
The “Room for Debate” section of the New York Times features a panel of experts asked to respond to the recent Kaiser Family Foundation findings that children between the ages of 8 and 18 spend a daily average of more than seven and a half hours on electronic devices (computers, TV, wireless phones, etc.). The Times piece asks: “If American parents are distressed by these findings, why don’t they do anything to change their children’s behavior? Are they being inattentive, or even negligent? Or is the portrait of media overload more complicated yet less daunting than it seems?” Featured panelists include:
Writer Emily Bazelon, of the online magazine Slate, asks readers to share their stories about cyberbullying. In a quest to learn more about the problem — and how to solve it — Bazelon has turned to the general public in the hope that their stories and suggestions can help shape public understanding and eventually, perhaps, improve online behavior.
Here’s Bazelon’s request, from a January 26 piece in Slate:
So I need your help. Slate readers were a fabulous source of stories last spring when I wrote a series about how the recession was affecting Americans. Now I want to hear from you about your experience, or someone else’s you know, of the many forms of cruelty in the online world. How big a problem is cyberbullying, really, and how is it a problem? In middle school, high school, college, and the workplace, what stories about meanness online, big or small, can you tell me: a gossipy YouTube video that ended in a suspension; a Facebook parody that caused tears or worse; a sext that damaged someone’s reputation; a stalker who tracked his obsession via social media? And what are schools and parents and the authorities doing about it?
Please send your stories and tips to cyberbullying.slate@gmail.com or to the new Facebook page for this project: E-mail will be treated as anonymous unless you say otherwise. I may write you back to ask questions. You can also write in with a question related to cyberbullying that you’d like advice about, and I’ll do my best to answer in consultation with Sameer Hinduja. And I’ll be traveling to schools, workplaces, whoever will have me to report out these stories, and writing up stories based on my reporting in a series on Slate. I’ll post news updates and other thoughts on the Facebook page and on my Twitter feed. Write to me, join in and post, help me dig deep into this toxic feature of our beloved Internet—and, I hope, into the solutions.
As parents and educators, many of us are aware of and concerned about the risks of social technology. Cyberbullying, sexting, privacy violations — these are all topics we cover frequently here at bNetS@vvy, topics that concern the safety and well-being of children.
But a recent New York Times article focuses on a social technology danger that affects adults and children, a risk so obvious that we don’t really think it: walking while talking or texting on a mobile device. According to the article, “The era of the mobile gadget is making mobility that much more perilous, particularly on crowded streets and in downtown areas where multiple multitaskers veer and swerve and walk to the beat of their own devices.”
Injuries from distracted walking are on the rise, says the Times, and young people in particular are most at risk. So give the article a read, make a mental note to add “distracted walking” to your list of potential social tech hazards, and make sure your child knows to put the mobile device away before walking (remind yourself as well).
Today’s cybersafety rule: look both ways — and put the mobile down — before crossing the street.
Do you suspect or have evidence that your child has made a harmful threat? See the post from one of our readers and the expert answer below:
Comment: I have a son in 6th grade and I am still reeling after reading some of his texts. He seems to be a well behaved boy and does not get in trouble. But I was shocked at the kinds of sexual comments he was making and his use of violent talk. For example, he made a sexual comment about a friend’s girlfriend. The friend threatened to tell on my son. My son’s response was I will KILL you, stab you if you tell. Please don’t tell. I am sorry!!! I have never heard him speak this way. He said all his friends talk like this. I am so shocked I don’t know what to say or do. Does he need counseling? Is this normal? This was not the only time in text that he used the expression to kill, die, or stab. He a few times opened his texts comments with die and stab like he was saying hello almost like a greeting!! I am lost and confused. I confronted my son. He was embarrassed and very upset. He said it made him sad that I saw the messages. Can someone advise me?
Response: Most likely, your son is using this threatening language because it makes him feel powerful and perhaps even cool. For today’s youth, email, text messages and IM give kids a sense of distance and even anonymity from the messages they send. Mixed with adolescent impulses, kids often say things online or through texts that they would never say in person. While this may be startling to you, this scenario is not uncommon among today’s tech-savvy youth.
The fact that your son became regretful and sad when you discovered the messages may be a sign that his texts were more likely a show of power than actual intention. The reality, however, is that threats like these are taken very seriously today by our communities, the school system and the law. Regardless of his intentions, this type of language is classified as cyberbullying and children are being severely reprimanded for threats like these. Many school districts have developed a no-tolerance policy when it comes to threats of violence and implement serious repercussions for students who engage cyberbullying.
It sounds like you’ve seen other texts that bothered you – ones with sexual tones or aggressive language. While this is most likely a case of normal adolescent exploration, don’t disregard the pattern of behavior. Most threats made by children or adolescents are not carried out, according to The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, however, warnings about killing someone else should be taken seriously.
Visit the AACAP Website for an article entitled “Children’s Threats: When are they serious?” by clicking this link: http://tinyurl.com/yadfxcj. Then, follow up with these general guidelines when addressing this incident with your son.
Get a conversation going. Avoid angry lectures and panicked discussions. Instead, stay calm, find a place to talk without distractions and ask open-ended questions to better understand what’s going on and connect with your son. Talk to him about the gravity of his words, help him understand that text messages can be forwarded to others, copied and posted online and taken at face value.
Talk about cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is a big problem among tweens and teens, and your son’s texts are one form of cyberbullying. Many kids also engage in cyberbullying when they become a victim themselves. Visit the National Crime Prevention Council’s page on cyberbullying (http://www.ncpc.org/cyberbullying) for a brief overview and additional resources.
Restrict his access. Behaviors like this may indicate that your child is not mature enough to use a cell phone, email or IM without your supervision. Consider taking away cell phone privileges temporarily and monitoring his email or IM sessions. Don’t do it behind his back – make sure your son understands that using technology is a privilege and you’ll be supervising his communications until he demonstrates responsible behavior.
Consider other influences. Children today are exposed to violence in many ways – through television shows, movies, video games and sometimes, even domestic violence – and boys more so than girls. Think about the media and environment your child is exposed to, how his language may be influenced by it, and how you can minimize the negative influences. Taking away those influences may help reduce your son’s tendency to participate in violent behavior.
Follow your instincts. Keep your eyes open for sudden mood changes, lack of interest in activities, a drop in grades or unusual aggressive behavior. These, or any other uncharacteristic behaviors, coupled with the threatening texts may be a sign that trouble is brewing. Even if you don’t see signs, but have gut feeling that something is wrong, trust your instincts. Consider school guidance or a professional counselor to get to the root of the problem sooner rather than later.
