Understanding Technology Concerning Cyberbullying

This clip, which went viral on the internet a few months ago, was shared this in my social media class yesterday, when we were discussing cyberbullying. It's pretty difficult watching a group of 25+year olds get so choked up over something that we can proactively help to diminish. As a warning, it has some trigger material concerning suicide and bullying.

I too followed the Amanda Todd case last year, but not just for the interest in the video and backstory. One of my brothers was bullied in high school, much the same way she was, "jokes and memes" included. 

I'll never forget the punch to my stomach I got when I found out emotional cyberbullying had created physical illness for my brother.  While teaching at the same school my brothers attended, one time one of my brothers specifically asked me to come down to the nurse's office instead of the school calling his parents, because he felt I might have a different perspective.  While I may have diffused the situation a bit by letting it sink in during the rest of the school day, before informing my parents, my reaction and emotional side were very similar to theirs.

Sitting with me in my classroom during my plan period and he broke down.  He said he's been teased, threatened, mocked, even a few physical punches to the head--with most of the bullying done online.  When I asked what they were saying, or if he knew why they were doing it, he said yes.  Worse, some of the teachers were aware but felt the situation might diffuse itself, instead of following school handbook protocol.  These kids, most of them who have been in his classes since kindergarten, found out he had a brain tumor.  They thought saying online things like "maybe if he gets stabbed in the head it'll go away" "just punch the tumor out of his face" or "thank God he'll die early and we won't have to see that big head of his" was funny.  You can imagine the horror and sadness I felt; think of how my brother, a high schooler dealing with a severe medical issue, felt.

My brother has a facebook and twitter account, which my mom has access to, as do I, and we try to keep a "watchful eye" on the accounts.  What upset me the most was that my parents and I didn't catch even a whiff of the bullying.  We monitor his social media, I teach at his school, I even teach and tutor some of the students who were bullying!  The problem with online social media is the rapidness things can be done or changed and accountability. Comments/messages can be posted in mere seconds and then "deleted" just as quickly.  Unless you're hovering over your child while using the computer (which would be similar to following them everywhere when they're playing outside), you can't catch it all.

While I'll concede, the school attempted to take action towards the offenders, the damage was already done--he was bullied. 

Examples such as Amanda Todd and my brother show that we're at a new stage in technology where we need to not only learn how to use it, but understand and demonstrate what it's capable of and educating anyone who uses it, along with preventative measures we can take--whether it's filtering, monitoring, or just even talking to people and informing.

Accountability on the Interwebz

Accountability on the internet.

Who's responsible for it?
Simple answer would be everyone.

Unfortunately, we can't just say someone's accountable and then they will be, we (the public sphere) need to hold them accountable, and I think a start to learning accountability is developing an understanding of media literacy.

Media literacy is commonly defined as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and produce media. It is the process of becoming active, rather than passive, consumers of media. The importance of media literacy is that it helps bridge the gap between everyday media use and applying it to another context.

Our society uses media on an everyday basis, so we have the capability to use it, but it's using it properly and effectively that's the trick.  All too often I've seen people post "So many posts about [insert here current political response or response to a major current event]" and leave their response criticizing other media users for sharing, evaluating, and communicating about important events, albeit, sometimes comments that are misinformed, biased, and/or targeted towards a group, but at least their attempting to display a form of media literacy. Whether it's leaving a comment, status, or update on Blogger, Facebook, or Twitter, integrating it into our curriculum as a teacher, or even using the tools it provides to apply it to our jobs, we have an accountability to be effective, responsible media users.