Cyberbullying is the process of attacking, insulting, belittling, humiliating, blackmailing, or otherwise harming someone online.
Cyberbullying takes millions of different forms. It could be as simple as a mean tweet. It could be as complex as researching someone’s personal life and publishing a stream of documents online for anyone to download.
Still, it’s not always aggressive behavior that’s characterized as cyberbullying. It could be passive aggressive or something else entirely.
In short, cyberbullying isn’t always cut and dry — but you know it when you see it.
You know it because you can see the impact on a student’s academic and personal life.
1. Identifying Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying is best defined broadly in terms of its negative impact on a student or students.
If that student’s peers see cyberbullying happening — even if it looks “innocent” like teasing — it’s important that they know what they’re really seeing.
It’s not just a joke someone’s playing. And it’s not “fake” just because it’s happening over the Internet.
It’s actually hurtful.
2. Not Participating in Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying is much easier to identify from a distance than it is up close.
A student may be a part of a group who wants to play a “prank” on another student online.
One way or another, that can quickly turn into cyberbullying. The perpetrators may even think it’s harmless because they’re only seeing their actions from their perspective.
But from the victim’s perspective, it could be a life-changing, devastating event.
So students may know what cyberbullying looks like, but they may not know what it feels like.
In fact, some good kids can wind up hurting someone simply because they don’t grasp the implications of their actions!
Students have to know empathy in order to really understand how that works. This isn’t easy — especially because Internet communication tends to dehumanize people since you don’t get to hear someone’s voice or look them in the eye.
Nevertheless, it’s essential to understand so students don’t become cyberbullies.
3. Stopping Cyberbullying
Stopping cyberbullying is easy on paper.
Stopping cyberbullying in practice takes courage.
That’s because it requires students to stand up for someone or something that isn’t seen as popular.
Teaching students how to take a stand or understand why they should defend someone who’s being victimized can go a long way in turning them into anti-bullying advocates.
As news has shown us, it may even save someone’s life.
