Bullying 24/7 (Cyberbullying)

I was thinking about kids and cyberbullying this afternoon. I had spent all day at a conference, and thus had not checked my email since early morning. As I was sitting down to log onto my email, I realized that I was feeling somewhat tense, because I was thinking about a couple of emails I had recently written where I was not sure how the recipient would react, and I was worried about that. This train of thought led me to thinking about kids and online activity, why cyberbullying is such a huge change for children, and why it can be so destructive for kids.


In my childhood, if you had a problem with another kid, or someone said something mean to you, that evening at home you could think about what to do about it the next day, or talk to your parents about it -- but home was a refuge, nothing further could happen that evening, and you didn't have to worry about what people were saying about you online at that moment. Nor did you feel that you had to go online to read what had been said. Having conversations online (via email, IM, Chat, Facebook, texting, or whatever) means -- aside from the public nature of the conversation and the number of people involved -- that there is something going on 24/7 that you have to think about and stress about. Functioning socially is normally at least a little bit stressful for almost everyone, as you think about the messages you receive from others and respond with an eye to your position in the group. Rather than participating in the social arena only during the day and being able to simply be yourself at home after school and in the evening, kids are now "on" all day, all afternoon, and all evening (and for some students, well into the night). If we adults feel the need to check our email constantly, find it hard to limit our checking to certain times of the day, and feel stressed about the messages that we might find, it's no wonder that this is huge in the lives of kids.

I don't know what the answer is to this dilemma. Some parents have eliminated online socializing entirely from their children's evening activities. Others try to closely supervise it, and coach as needed to help kids function in the online world. I do believe that social networks, used appropriately, can be very positive. At the conference today, one of the presentations featured a high school student whose teacher was using a ning in his AP government class, and was enthused about the exciting conversations that he and his classmates were having about government and political affairs, including "on the run" conversations as they learned something new about a campaign or breaking news, and another student spoke about using a ning and glogs in her video class. Both talked about the sense of community that had developed in their classes, the connections they had made, and the high level of learning they had experienced. But the same technology can be used for bullying, or simply can magnify what would otherwise be normal developmental social difficulties into problems too big for a child to deal with.

Comments? Thoughts about what works best to help kids find their way in the online social world? If you have a good idea or solution, please do share it!