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Will New Censorship Bills Increase Cyberbullying on Social Media? post thumbnail

Will New Censorship Bills Increase Cyberbullying on Social Media?

Over the last few months, politicians in many states across America* have introduced and/or passed bills that allow individuals to file civil lawsuits against social media platforms that remove or restrict their online posts. In my home state of Florida, our governor recently signed such a bill into law (SB7072) to protect against “Silicon Valley […]

Can Schools Discipline for Off-Campus Speech? The U.S. Supreme Court Weighs In post thumbnail

Can Schools Discipline for Off-Campus Speech? The U.S. Supreme Court Weighs In

The U.S. Supreme Court has just released a highly anticipated opinion in the case of a Pennsylvania high school cheerleader who was suspended from the team for profanity about the team that was posted to Snapchat on the weekend. (If you are new to Mahanoy v. B.L., see my previous posts here and here.) We […]

A Teen’s View of Social Media in 2021 post thumbnail

A Teen’s View of Social Media in 2021

Hey everyone! Meet my friend Lucia – she is the perfect person to give you an updated perspective on how teens are using social media in 2021, based on her personal experiences and the observations she’s made among her peer group. I think she deeply understands the draw and attraction of particular apps, and has […]

Deepfakes and Cyberbullying post thumbnail

Deepfakes and Cyberbullying

Recently, a unique cyberbullying situation came to light involving a 50-year-old woman who targeted teenage girls in her Bucks County, Pennsylvania community last summer. The most interesting twist was not the vast age difference between the aggressor and the targets, but that fact that software was used to alter original images found online to make […]

Snapchat Speech Could be Out-of-Bounds for School Discipline post thumbnail

Snapchat Speech Could be Out-of-Bounds for School Discipline

B.L. was a promising cheerleader at Mahanoy Area High School in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania. She had been involved in the sport since elementary school, and as a freshman participated on the junior varsity team. Going into her sophomore year, she was hoping to make the varsity squad. To her disappointment, she was once again placed […]

Inoculate Against Bullying by Chatting with your Children post thumbnail

Inoculate Against Bullying by Chatting with your Children

I pick my son up from school most days, and from his first day of kindergarten I got into the habit of routinely asking him two specific questions: 1) “How was your day?” and 2) “Was there any bullying?” I’d ask the latter question with a conspiratorial raise of my brow—as if asking him if […]

StopTheB – A New Anti-Bullying Movement post thumbnail

StopTheB – A New Anti-Bullying Movement

Recently, I have become aware of a cool new global initiative called StopTheB. It is for young people, by young people – and was founded by two sisters, Vasundhara (22) and Riddhi Oswal (16). The main aim of StopTheB is not only to raise awareness and educate on the issues, context, and dynamics of bullying […]

Digital Resilience post thumbnail

Digital Resilience

We define digital resilience as “positive attitudes and actions in the face of interpersonal adversity online.” While adversity can arise from technological sources as well (e.g., hard drive crashes, forgotten passwords, vulnerable cloud accounts), we are primarily concerned with the social aspect of online interactions that induce anger, frustration, anxiety, fear, embarrassment, and similar outcomes. […]

Tween Social Media and Gaming in 2020 post thumbnail

Tween Social Media and Gaming in 2020

This month we have been highlighting results from our recent national survey of tweens, conducted with our friends at Cartoon Network. In this post, I want to focus on what we learned about the devices tweens have and the apps and games they use. Technology access and use by children is of interest to many, […]