Read the latest news and brand new pieces on youth, social media, and emerging technologies! We focus on preventing harm and promoting positive online behaviors.
Teen Tweeting
Sysomos released a report in June describing the “explosive growth” of twitter over the past several months. We’ve certainly seen an increase in tweeting in popular culture, but are adolescents jumping on board? Our conversations with teens suggest no. And a recent account from one particular teen about his peers’ views of twitter also reaffirms […]
Jostens 2009
I just got back from presenting at the Jostens Renaissance National Conference in Orlando. As I wrote about after attending this conference last year, these folks really know how to have a good time! The energy was just amazing. There were once again over 1100 educators and high achieving students from around North America in […]
The sexting case in Virginia, and the need to identify and share best practices
Justin and I have both blogged about the case where an assistant principal in Virginia was charged with possession of child pornography after trying to investigate a sexting case through the collection of evidence where a student emailed the evidence (a sexually-explicit picture of a minor) to his office computer. The charges were eventually dropped, […]
Cyberbullying Research Center
For those of you who are regular visitors to the site, you may have noticed some changes over the last week or so. Sameer and I have been working hard to add and update information on the site to make it even more useful for you all. For example, we’ve added a few videos to […]
Video recordings of student and teacher behavior in the classroom
In this recent story from the West Coast, a 15-year-old high-schooler named Arielle was suspended for two days after surreptitiously capturing video on her cell phone of her chaotic algebra class. Apparently, the situation was horrible with the teacher unable to control the students, who were participating in paper-ball fights, smoking cigarettes and marijuana, and […]
More on seizure and search of student cell phones at school…
In April, Justin briefly blogged about this article from the Washington post entitled My Students. My Cellphone. My Ordeal. I’d like to follow up by saying that more educators are contacting us with questions on what to do in cases where students have cell phones with sexually-explicit pictures of other youth on them. While the […]
Facebook privacy settings
Thankfully, Facebook is soon going to restructure the way it displays privacy settings to users. Currently, those settings are scattered across multiple pages, and it is a chore for individuals to customize them to their liking. When we talk to elementary, middle, and high-schoolers, we ask about those settings – and have found that very […]
Convictions against Lori Drew overturned today; case dismissed
The case against Lori Drew has been dismissed in federal court today, as the judge seemingly thought it would be wrong to criminalize certain Terms of Service violations of MySpace and other social networking web sites since users often misrepresent themselves online. (Bottom line when it comes to this ruling is that the law used […]
Lori Drew to be sentenced in Megan Meier cyberbullying case
We are all waiting with baited breath to learn of the sentencing decision to be handed down this week against Lori Drew. In part because of the incredible amount of controversy surrounding this case, I believe the sentence will be minor and not amount to more than a proverbial slap on the wrist. Already we […]
Same Story, Different Day: Another Teen Suicide Associated with Bullying
Another story has surfaced where a teen committed suicide after experiencing bullying. The Chicago Tribune reports that Iain Steele, a 15-year-old boy from a western suburb of Chicago, hung himself in the basement of his home. This case, like many others, illustrates the omnipresent nature of adolescent bullying in the 21st century. Iain was bullied […]
