In the PBS documentary we watched this week, young people say that they are empowered by social media.They are not alone. Many people who have benefited from the digital revolution might have the same feeling. We are empowered, and our voices are heard more than ever in the Information Age.
In her article, Rymes uses a case at Duke University to make clear that discussions on social media, such as Weibo, Twitter, and Facebook, created a rupture in a feedback loop that has been reinforcing a status quo policy of “English-for-their-own-good” for centuries in this country—centuries that have led many “well-meaning” people to reproduce ethnocentric and racist norms.
However, even though no one would deny the positive impact of social media on our lives and society, we should not ignore the dark side of it. In a very recent study of a nationally representative sample of approximately 5,700 middle and high schoolers in the U.S., 33.8 percent said they had been cyberbullied during their lifetime, while 16.9 percent said they had been cyberbullied within the previous 30 days (Hinduja & Patchin, 2019).
It’s true that in the world of social media, the more “likes” we have, the better we will feel about ourselves. However, what if our personal conversations, photos and videos are leaked online, are shared and retweeted so that the most embarrassing selves become known to the public?
Monica Lewinsky talked about a heartbreaking story of a boy named Tyler Clementi in her TED Talk The price of shame. Tyler as a young college freshman from Rutgers University. He was secretly webcammed by his roommate while being intimate with another man. When the online world learned of this incident, the ridicule and cyberbullying ignited. A few days later, Tyler jumped from the George Washington Bridge to his death.
In the PBS documentary, we got to know how companies make huge profits from “likes”. That’s not the only way they make money. According to Lewinsky, a marketplace has emerged where public humiliation is a commodity, and shame is an industry. How is the money made? Clicks and retweets. The more shame, the more clicks/shares. The more clicks/shares, the more advertising dollars. Now the question is: what should we do to prevent our kids and ourselves from falling into the dangerous cycle?
To prevent cyberbullying, Weibo in China added an anti-cyberbullying feature last year. With the new feature, if an account gets blacklisted by a Weibo author and its comments have been removed by the author, then it will not be able to post any comments on the Weibo site for the next 3 days. Facebook also offers tools to help users deal with cyberbullying and harassment. Users are encouraged to unfriend and block the bully and also report the person or any abusive things they post.
For people who are not targets of cyberbullying, what should we do? I want to quote Monica Lewinsky’s words here: we need to communicate online with compassion, consume news with compassion and click with compassion. Just imagine walking a mile in someone else's headline.
Questions for you to think about:
1. Have you ever experienced/witnessed cyberbullying? What was it like?
2. How can we do to prevent cyberbullying and stay cyber-safe?
1. Have you ever experienced/witnessed cyberbullying? What was it like?
2. How can we do to prevent cyberbullying and stay cyber-safe?
Thank you for reading my post. I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Reference
Hinduja, S. & Patchin, J. W. (2019). Cyberbullying fact sheet: Identification, Prevention, and Response. Cyberbullying Research Center. Retrieved [insert date], from https://cyberbullying.org/Cyberbullying-Identification-Prevention-Response-2019.pdf
Hi!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post! I think honestly cyber bullying is a huge issue for the internet right now. Everyone feels comfortable being their meanest self (adults and kids alike). I feel that this is because you do not see a facial reaction of the person being hurt. I bet most of the people who bully people online would not say those same words to the person's face if they had the chance. The internet veils us to feel invincible, we can even change everything about ourselves (name, location, age, gender, etc.) to make one seem unrecognizable. I especially worry about the children who have access to these YouTube channels and other media platforms and are exposed to the nonsense it at such a young age. I feel the only way to combat it is to do three things: 1. Do as Monica said, imagine yourself in someone else's shoes, 2. Ask yourself would you say what you are typing to their face, and 3. Is it necessary? This last question would hopefully help kids understand that sometimes they do not have to say every opinion and thing they are thinking ( trust me it is hard to teach them that! ). They need to think about how if what they say is helping the conversation or hurting it. I feel as though the educational factor must be taught like this or similar to young people especially because they need to know that all people are not just internet trolls!
So, I feel bad admitting this, but someone very close to me was a cyberbully back when we were in high school and before a term was even conceived of it. Back in the genesis internet days with America Online (AOL) and chat rooms, this loved one enjoyed going into these spaces and terrorizing the users on there. He was a musician and would also go on rival bands guestbooks and anonymously would leave disparaging comments on there. It really put me in an awkward position. On the one hand, he did not act in isolation; cyberbullying was in its infancy and was something that more people I knew were doing. There were also the pressures of being a teenager and "being cool" and not ratting out on your friends. On the other hand, some of the comments made were very hurtful and I couldn't imagine how the person being bullied felt. Even if I wanted to do something about it, I'm not to whom I would have spoken for support. I'm curious how school districts/parents/students handle this type of behavior now.
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