Responding to Cyberbullying: Strategies for School Counselors
Technology has created many opportunities for students to be hurtful to each other in a variety of ways, and has made interpersonal peer conflict even more challenging for schools to deal with. This is complicated by the reality that youth have always been hesitant to confide in adults when faced with problems with peers. In […]
The Nature and Extent of Youth Sextortion: Legal Implications and Directions for Future Research
Sextortion, the threatened dissemination of explicit, intimate, or embarrassing images of a sexual nature without consent, is an understudied problem. Despite a recent increase in reported incidents among adolescents in the United States, little is known about the nature and extent of sextortion among this population. The current research explores sextortion behaviors among a national […]
Adolescent Digital Self-Harm Over Time: Prevalence and Perspectives
Digital self-harm, the anonymous online posting, sending, or otherwise sharing of hurtful content about oneself, has not received the same amount of scholarly scrutiny as other forms of self-directed abuse. In the current paper, we analyze three independent national surveys of U.S. teens (aged 13–17, M = 14.96) in repeat cross-sectional studies conducted in 2016 […]
Digital Self-Harm: The Growing Problem You’ve Never Heard Of
Sameer and I first became aware of digital self-harm over a decade ago when we learned of the suicide of Hannah Smith. She was 14 years old when she ended her life after being mistreated online. The resulting investigation determined that the threats and hurtful comments directed toward her on the anonymous app Ask.fm were […]
Lessons Learned from Ten Generative AI Misuse Cases
Generative AI can contribute to a wide range of possible risks and harms that can affect the emotional and psychological well-being of others, their financial state of affairs, and even their physiological health and physical safety. Both users and platforms (as well as government!) have a clear role to play, and I’ve explained their respective […]
Teens and AI: Virtual Girlfriend and Virtual Boyfriend Bots
A school counselor who works in a private school in California recently emailed me to ask for help as it relates to students and the misuse of specific AI bots. Her concerns, though, did not surround general purpose AI bots like Snapchat’s My AI or Microsoft’s CoPilot, but rather those that are specifically used as […]
2023 Cyberbullying Data
This study surveyed a nationally-representative sample of 5,005 middle and high school students between the ages of 13 and 17 in the United States. Data were collected in May and June of 2023. Click on the thumbnail images to enlarge. Cyberbullying Victimization. We define cyberbullying as: “Cyberbullying is when someone repeatedly and intentionally harasses, mistreats, […]
Cyberbullying legislation and case law: Implications for school policy and practice
This Fact Sheet provides a summary of important court cases and pending legislation that can help school administrators evaluate and improve their current cyberbullying policies and procedures. Hinduja, S. & Patchin, J.W. (2024). Cyberbullying legislation and case law: Implications for school policy and practice. Cyberbullying Research Center. Retrieved [insert date], from https://cyberbullying.org/cyberbullying-legal-issues.pdf Download PDF
When Your Mother is Your Cyberbully
Last winter when Sameer and I were writing the third edition of Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard (published last fall!), we spent quite a bit of time searching for unique examples of cyberbullying to include in the book. One of the more interesting cases I came across involved a 14-year-old girl from Beal City, Michigan. I […]
Cyberbullying Fact Sheet: Identification, Prevention, and Response
UPDATED for 2024! This detailed guide is a nine-page summary – filled with as much useful information as possible – to equip educators, parents, and other youth-serving adults to spot cyberbullying, respond to it appropriately and meaningfully, and to prevent its future occurrence among those they care for. If you only have time to read […]
