In case you haven’t heard, Positive Post-It Day is a worldwide phenomenon – and it all began with a Canadian teenager in the fall of 2014 who wanted to flip the script on bullying. Alberta student Caitlin Haacke was bullied at school and threatened on Facebook with suggestions to take her own life. Instead of…
If you work in the youth safety space, you know that certain initiatives (such as resilience building) have focused on targets of bullying and cyberbullying. Other programming has concentrated attention on aggressors – to the kids who harass, humiliate, and threaten other youth offline and online. Here, restorative practices and social emotional learning (anger management,…
This past summer, I served as a Fulbright Specialist at the Anti-Bullying Centre (ABC) at Dublin City University (DCU) in Dublin, Ireland. It was an amazing experience. I just wanted to take a few minutes to share what it involved, who I spent time with, and how it made an impact – not just short-term,…
Last week, I attended a workshop at Harvard entitled “Harmful Speech Online: At the Intersection of Algorithms and Human Behavior.” Sponsored and organized by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, and Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, its goal was to “broadly explore harmful speech…
Ten years ago, computer scientists would contact our Center and ask if we could give them thousands of examples of cyberbullying content – which they wanted to comb through to look for trends and patterns in how harm was inflicted. Nowadays, they don’t ask for data because it’s widely available for them to web scrape…
The inaugural World Anti-Bullying Forum was held in Sweden this week (where the cherry blossoms were blooming!), and I had the honor of representing the Cyberbullying Research Center and the International Bullying Prevention Association (IBPA) in attending. I am doing some work at Dublin City University for the first half of this summer, and so…
We have talked a lot about resilience over the last year, and have shared some practical ways to cultivate that ability. Today, I want to provide some additional tangible strategies to help you further. I have previously discussed that it is critical for kids to be placed intentionally in situations where they can discover their…
Resilience online is built in the same way as resilience offline. We must provide opportunities for youth to face social and relational problems head on, and to recognize their own strength, agency, and power to overcome them – do so within an environment of supportive resources (so they know you and I have their back!).…
League of Legends (or League for short) is the most popular multiplayer online game in the world, and takes place in a 3-D battle arena setting involving role-playing and real-time strategy elements into its live environment. Players in League (also known as “summoners”) are matched up with others depending on their skill and game level…
A couple weeks ago, I attended Facebook’s annual Global Safety Network Summit in Washington, DC, to hang out with colleagues and long-time friends, and to make some new connections as well. Facebook first discussed the new safety initiatives they are implementing such as their outstanding new suicide prevention tools in Live and Messenger (check them…
We’ve all heard the “sticks and stones” adage while growing up, and the reality is that words – whether expressed online or in person – can hurt. Sometimes very deeply. But do they always? And do they have to? That is, do I have any say in the matter or am I completely at the…
With each new year, coaches are increasingly dealing with the challenges of social media. This can include inappropriate, unethical, and even illegal student-athlete conduct directly or indirectly related to their online communications. Recently, some schools are even mandating that informal or formal monitoring of students takes place by coaches, but not providing clear guidance on…
It is easy for many adults – whether educators or parents – to focus on the negatives of social media in the lives of teens today. This is understandable, because they are the ones who have to deal with the fallout when adolescents make mistakes online (cyberbullying incidents, sexting cases, electronic dating violence, digital reputation…
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects social communication and often is marked by restricted interests, repetitive behaviors, and focus and sensory issues. ASD is diagnosed along a continuum from Level 1 (which can be equated to traditional conceptions of Asperger’s Syndrome – a term largely outdated), to Level 2 (where the…
I get a chance to meet and hang out with a lot of youth as I help schools educate their faculty, staff, and students about promoting positive teen technology use. With some, I’ve developed a friendship and have met their parent(s), and it has provided me a sounding board off which I can bounce ideas,…
Musical.ly, an increasingly popular app with tweens and teens, allows individuals to create and share short videos that are lip-synced to songs of their choice. Remarkably, there are 80 million registered users, with around 10 million of those active on a daily basis. These “Musers” – as they are called – upload an average of…
With presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently pledging at a town hall meeting that she would do whatever she could to end revenge porn (and cyberbullying [call us, Hillary, we can help! Donald, you too!]), I thought it was time to take a closer look at the phenomenon. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about…
When I think of the term “sextortion” I think of an offense marked by deceit, manipulation, and the callous exploitation of human vulnerability. I think of trust being violated, and I think of absolute heartbreak from the fallout. Finally, I think of wounds from which it seems very hard to recover. It also reminds me…
Parents are constantly asking me about their kids and their social media participation. Among other things, they want to know what app or site they should start their child on. I could recommend some that are specifically designed for young eyes and ears, but those aren’t as popular as the ones that the mass of…
In my last blog entry, I sought to help readers unfamiliar with Snapchat with a primer on its background, use, and notable features. While emphasizing that the vast majority of youth use the app in positive ways (based on our extensive anecdotal observations), there are some negatives that may arise on rare occasions. It is…
Snapchat. If you work with youth, you know it’s all the rage. And if you don’t, I bet you’re still hearing about it on a regular basis. Maybe you’ve taken the time to download it and use it. Maybe you have some familiar with how it operates, and why it is the next big thing.…
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to visit the Columbine Memorial in Littleton, Colorado. Even though my family loves Colorado as a vacation destination, I had never stopped by to see what was done to honor those who lost their lives in that horrific tragedy. My friend Dan – who lives in Littleton –…
Whenever Justin or I present to adult audiences, we are often asked to suggest parental monitoring software that moms and dads can install on their child’s devices to provide some sort of monitoring functionality. Some are interested in quickly being “in the know” if their son or daughter is being cyberbullied, so that they can…
We live in a society where online searches tend to influence – if not drive – many of our decisions. If we are looking for a good doctor in the area, a potential vacation spot, or advice on what electronics to purchase this holiday season, we will perform searches using our phone, tablet, or computer.…