Chatroulette, sexually-offensive content, and cyberbullying
An increasing amount of educators and parents are asking us our thoughts on “Chatroulette,” which was created by a Russian teenager in late 2009. User traffic has increased from 500 people a day last November to 1.5 million daily as of March 2010, and major IT companies are seeking to purchase it from its ingenious […]
RapeLay – sexually explicit video gaming and youth culture
Recent press coverage has been focused on “hentai” video games being produced in Japan and distributed all across the world in an underground manner. Hentai generally refers to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, and video games of this ilk have been available for years overseas. Recently, though, they have been “ripped” from DVD-ROMs […]
Criminal Charges Filed Against Bullies in Phoebe Prince Case
It is not often that students are charged in criminal court for their participation in bullying. But that is what happened this week. As has been well-publicized, 15-year-old Phoebe Prince of South Hadley, Massachusetts, committed suicide in January after experiencing extreme levels of bullying from her classmates. After conducting a thorough investigation, District Attorney Elizabeth […]
Implications for teachers who socialize with students online, and how to avoid them
Let’s return to our multi-post (here, here, and here) discussion of student and teacher interaction on social networking sites or in other online venues. Social networks such as Facebook and MySpace are primarily for socializing. “Socializing” involves interacting for social purposes, and “social purposes” are those marked by friendly companionship with others. It seems, therefore, […]
Trends in Online Social Networking: Adolescent Use of MySpace over Time
MySpace has received a significant amount of negative attention from the media and many concerned adults, who point to several isolated incidents where predators have contacted, become involved with and even assaulted adolescents whom they met through the popular social networking web site. Furthermore, concerned parents have expressed discontent with the amount and type of […]
Strain, Traditional Bullying, and Cyberbullying podcast
I recently participated in a joint podcast organized by Sage Publications with fellow social scientists Robert Agnew, Carter Hay, and Paul Mazerolle to chat about the relationship between the sociological concept of strain, traditional bullying, and cyberbullying. According to Agnew’s General Strain Theory, strain has three sources: (1) the failure to achieve positively-valued goals; (2) […]
Victimology in Cyberspace
Justin and I have been focusing a lot on what I like to call “Facebook Faux Pas” – or, in general, unwise practices on social networking, social media, and microblogging sites. A new site has been receiving a lot of attention lately – PleaseRobMe.com. Check it out at your convenience. Basically, it runs a simple […]
Cyberbullying research article published in Deviant Behavior
Routledge (Taylor and Francis) is making some of their copyrighted journal articles available at no cost through June, and our research piece entitled “Cyberbullying: An Exploratory Analysis of Factors Related to Offending and Victimization,” published in Deviant Behavior, is one of those and is available here. To date, it is one of the most downloaded […]
Social Norms and Cyberbullying Among Students
As I mentioned in my cyberbullying and sexting comments at the National Crime Prevention Council Circle of Respect event two weeks ago, “social norming” continues to bear relevance for dealing with cyberbullying at schools, and I’d like to flesh it out some more since I am a big fan of the concept. Basically, youth tend […]
“Redefining Respect in America” event – January 15th, 2009, Washington DC
On Friday, I’ll be participating in this press event hosted by the National Crime Prevention Council, along with some world-class authors. I have been asked to speak about cyberbullying and sexting. I will summarize my prepared remarks and experience in a future post, but if you are in the area and want to meet up […]