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Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak to members of the Minnesota Task Force on the Prevention of Bullying. Members were appointed by Governor Mark Dayton with the charge of recommending a course of action to the governor about how best to prevent and respond to bullying. Below were my comments to the group. Remarks…
As a followup to our last blog post, we’d like to share some more guidance to keep in mind as you are updating and refining your school’s policy related to Facebook (and other social networking sites). We hope this is helpful for you. Please remember, though, that you must do a lot more than policy…
Our colleague Mike Donlin and I have been talking out some issues related to public education and teen technology use. He has recently pointed out that there are certain points that the FCC would like schools to know as it relates to their intersection with and use of social networking sites. Specifically, schools need to…
Canadian Cyberbullying Educator and Speaker Lissa Albert and I have been chatting about some parents engaging in controversial and arguably questionable behavior to “send a message” to their teenagers about appropriate and inappropriate behavior. These instances have gone viral, and Lissa has done a great job of providing a backdrop of this practice as well…
Estimates of the number of teens who have experienced cyberbullying are all over the map. I can point you to a paper published in a peer-reviewed academic journal that says that 72% of students have been cyberbullied while another published study puts the number at 5.5%. The numbers are similarly varied when it comes to…
We discuss the legal issues associated with schools responding to cyberbullying incidents quite often in this space. You can find many blog posts which attempt to clarify the variety of issues raised (see here and here) and we have a summary fact sheet that is available here. Of course the law, and our understanding of…
Justin and I had a great time at Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation launch at Harvard University last week. It was amazing to be surrounded by such brilliant scholars, researchers, and practitioners from across the United States, and even a few from England and Australia. The professional event we were a part of was…
As a resident of the state of Wisconsin and someone who follows bullying legislation from around the United States pretty closely (see our summary here), I was particularly interested to learn that a proposal was being put forward to update Wisconsin’s bullying law. Wisconsin’s law took effect in 2010 and requires schools to have a…
I have been chatting with my colleague Nancy Willard from Embrace Civility in the Digital Age about Facebook in schools, and how they should and should not be used by educators. These are her recent thoughts with some of my input added…just to get some more discussion going on this issue. We both think that…
By now, you have probably seen Facebook’s newest controversial overhaul to profile pages. Dubbed “Facebook Timeline,” the latest out of Palo Alto is being described by the social networking behemoth as a new way to “Tell your life story.” With these changes, it is clear that Facebook intends to allow its users to do just…
At the Cyberbullying Research Center we strive to approach the issue of teen technology use and misuse from a data-informed perspective. Just to be clear, data doesn’t just mean bar charts. Over the last ten years we have formally surveyed over 12,000 middle and high school students, so yes, we have a lot of bar…
We have just updated one of our most popular resources. You can find our latest bullying law fact sheet here. As you can see, all but 2 states now have bullying laws in place or scheduled to take effect in 2012. Most of these (35) include language about electronic forms of bullying while still relatively…
One of the Internet’s latest privacy controversies surrounds the rapidly-growing web site Isanyoneup.com. The site, which launched in late 2010, is essentially a hybrid of social media and amateur pornography – described by some media outlets as a blog for “Revenge Porn.” The blog features thousands of posts containing extremely explicit photos of naked men…
For those of you who didn’t see, I recently wrote a blog for Huffington Post UK to correspond with the cyberbullying event in London that I was a part of. Here it is: Teens have been bullying each other for generations. The latest generation, however, has been able to utilize technology to expand their reach…
On Friday, 25th of November, I will be participating in a discussion at Birkbeck’s School of Business, Economics and Informatics at the University of London. (for more information about the event, click here.) There I will talk about what I have learned about how teens are using technology to cause harm to their peers, along…
Much of our work over the last several years has focused on identifying the consequences associated with cyberbullying. We are especially interested in offline behaviors or experiences, as well as links to delinquency and school problems. And we are concerned with the outcomes of both targets and those who engage in cyberbullying. One particular problem…
One of the first things we learned in our earliest cyberbullying studies was that targets were not telling adults about their experiences. Even today, very few students who are cyberbullied talk with adults about what is going on. The concern we have heard from adolescents time and time again is that they are afraid to…
Technology is great and we know from our research that the vast majority of teens are using it safely and responsibly. But a few are creating problems for themselves or others by what they post online. That’s why we’ve partnered with Jostens to produce a number of useful resources for you to educate yourself or…
Much of our work to teach adults about what teens are doing online is directed toward educators or parents, but increasingly we are working with law enforcement officers – especially those assigned to a school setting (school resource or liaison officers). Like the others, police officers often find themselves in a difficult situation when confronted…
Apart from asking us “how young is too young for Facebook?” Justin and I often work with parents who have other questions about household rules they should have in place related to their child’s use of technology. We first state that parents should provide their kids with access to these devices a little bit earlier…
We’ve talked in great detail about students bringing their personal electronic devices at school and the complications that may result. We have also covered standards for searching these devices, and have provided a cell phone search checklist which may help administrators in these situations. In keeping with these discussions, I wanted to take some time…
New Jersey’s updated bullying law took effect today amid controversy and confusion. The New York Times recently reported on the law and I have received numerous calls from folks interested in my take on certain provisions. Bullying and cyberbullying legislation has been the topic of much discussion on this blog, and regular readers know that…
As we begin the new school year and reaquaint ourselves with some of the negatives implications that student-owned electronic devices at school may have, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about teachers and administrators confiscating cell phones due to school policy violations. Many of us know from experience that it may be more of a…
Justin and I have been trying to figure out a way to help inform school administrators as to when they can go ahead and search the contents of student cell phones. Week after week after week, this is one of the primary questions we receive from them. We want to help guide them in a…