Unit 2

What Are The Social Influences?

Chapter Two

Social Media Statistics
Cyberbullying and Teen Dating Abuse
Sexting, Self-Esteem, and Peer Pressure

Lesson 1: Social Media Statistics

95% percent of youth ages 12–17 are online.
Overall, Internet use does not vary much by region—91% of rural teens, 87% of urban teens, and 93% of suburban teens use the Internet.
- But, daily Internet use does vary by region—40% of urban teens and 39% of suburban teens use the Internet several times per day, compared to 25% of rural teens.
Growing access to broadband Internet may increase teen media use in rural areas:
- Over 75% of families with children recently reported having broadband Internet access at home, up from 50% in 2004.
This has important implications for rural teen media use because 40% of teens who have broadband access at home report using the Internet multiple times a day (compared to 21% of teens who live in households with a dial-up connection).
Wireless access impacts teens’ Internet use, since more than 25% of teens report using their cell phone to go online.
The most recent estimates show that 23% of youth ages 12–17 have a smartphone, with no differences in phone ownership by race/ethnicity or income.
16% of youth report having used a tablet to go online in the 30 days before they were asked about such use.
Social networking is key to teen’s media use: 80% of youth ages 12–17 report using social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Myspace), up from 73% just two years before, and many report using such sites daily.
Among online teens, older teens (ages 14 to 17) are more likely to use social networking sites than younger teens ages 12 and 13; and in fact, some social networking sites prohibit accounts for those under 14.
Though most youth use social networking sites, youth from lower income families (under $30,000) are more likely to use such sites (80%) than teens in wealthier households (70%).
The majority of youth who use social media (69%) report that other youth are mostly kind to one another on social networking sites.
However, another 20% of youth who use social media say that their peers are mostly unkind to others via this technology.
88% of youth reported having observed other teens being mean or cruel on social networking sites, and 12% said they observed this behavior frequently.
15% reported that they were the victim of cruelty through social media in the 12 months prior to being surveyed.
25% of teens on social media reported having an experience resulting in a face-to-face confrontation with someone, 13% reported concern about having to go to school the next day, and 8% reported having actually had physical altercations with someone because of something that occurred on a social network site.
All this suggests that youth use technology frequently and it plays an important role in how they interact with other youth and dating partners.

Lesson Plan 1 Template

Who is this for?

Sacramento high school students, teachers, and staff at an assembly. Student age range is 13-18 years old. Parents are also encouraged to attend the assembly.

Objective:

After this lesson, students should understand the prevalance of dating abuse and violence amongst teenagers and the importance of reporting. This lesson is aimed at educating the students on the statistics behind teen dating abuse and violence.

Materials needed for this lesson:

Access to a computer and a projector for video and powerpoint. Powerpoint with different statistics written on each slide. As an alternative, poster boards can also be used.

Set up:

Before this lesson, we will show the students a short video on the warning signs of digital abuse and then follow that up with statistics from various research studies. The teacher will need to prepare the powerpoint with the statistic slides or poster board statistics in the order which they will read them. For extremely small classes, the teacher can read the statistics out to the class, however visuals are preferred.

Steps:

Display and read the statistics to the students and ask them to raise their hands to decide whether they are true or false.
Give the correct answer and provide more information to facilitate a discussion about the topic.

Assesment:

If the students were paying attention to the video and lesson about statistics, then they should know which statistics are true, however if they do not, allow some time for discussion so that they can ask questions and you can further explain the importance of these statistics.

Evaluation:

The statistics for teen dating violence is very high, so if the students are able to understand these statistics, then this can help raise awareness in the community. Visuals will helps them understand the numbers. So, how well they can remember these numbers during the activity depends on how well we can emphasize them during our lesson.

Lesson 2: Cyberbullying and Teen Dating Abuse

Cyberstalking, non-consensual internet pornography, exposing private information, reputation damage, impersonation or false representation, and other online attacks carried and amplified by networking technologies constitute the new face of violence against teens.
Technology-based domestic violence also includes using Facebook to monitor, track and harass victims’ children, friends and family members.
Such pervasive and intimate abuses of trust further isolate victims from their social supports – especially when victims are compelled to close down or withdraw altogether from social media.
In the social media age, when image and reputation are everything, perpetrators can devastate their partner or ex-partner psychologically, socially and financially, while remaining cloaked in anonymity from cyberspace.
In 2007, a report funded by Liz Claiborne, Inc. found that out of the teens surveyed and interviewed, a large number experienced levels of high-tech-facilitated partner monitoring, often experienced as excessive, as well as put-downs and harassment:
- One-third (36%) reported that their partner had checked up on them 10, 20, or 30 times per day via cell phone (for example, asking where he/she is, or who he/she is with).
- Almost one-third (30%) reported that their partner used email or text messaging to check up on them 10, 20, or 30 times per hour.
- One in four reported communicating electronically hourly between midnight and 5 A.M.
- Some 17% said their boy/girlfriend had made them afraid to not respond to an electronic communication.
- One in four experienced harassment, name-calling, or put downs from a current or former dating partner through cell phone or text messaging.
- Nearly one in five experienced harassment or put downs through a social networking site.
A study conducted by the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center found out of a total of 5,647 youth:
- 26% of youth in a relationship said they experienced some form of cyber dating abuse victimization
- Females were twice as likely as males to report being a victim of sexual cyber dating abuse
- More than a tenth (12%) of youth in a relationship said they had perpetrated cyber dating abuse
- Females reported greater levels of non-sexual cyber dating abuse perpetration than males
- By contrast, male youth were significantly more likely to report perpetrating sexual cyber dating abuse
- Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth reported significantly higher rates of cyber dating abuse victimization and perpetration than heterosexual youth
- 84% of cyber dating abuse victims also reported psychological dating abuse victimization
- 52% reported physical dating violence victimization
- 33% reported sexual coercion
- 73% of cyber dating abuse perpetrators also reported psychological dating abuse perpetration
- 55% also reported physical dating violence perpetration
- 11% reported sexual coercion perpetration
Overall, less than one out of ten victims of dating abuse reported seeking help, with half as many male victims as female victims seeking help
Draucker and Martsolf found eight ways in which partners used electronic communications, the last six of which were related to violence, abuse, or controlling behaviors:
- (1) Establishing a relationship
- (2) Nonaggressive communication
- (3) Arguing
- (4) Monitoring the whereabouts of a partner or controlling their activities
- (5) Emotional aggression toward a partner
- (6) Seeking help during a violent episode
- (7) Distancing a partner’s access to self by not responding to calls, texts, and other contacts via technology
- (8) Reestablishing contact after a violent episode

Lesson Plan 2 Template

Who is this for?

Sacramento high school students, teachers, and staff at an assembly. Student age range is 13-18 years old. Parents are also encouraged to attend the assembly.

Objective:

After this lesson, students should be able to understand the significance that technology and social media can have when used in an abusive manner within a teen dating relationship. They should be able to understand the warning signs associated with technology for victims of dating abuse and domestic violence.

Materials needed for this lesson:

Pen/Pencil
Shannon's Story handout
Looking at Shannon and Greg's Situation handout

Set up:

The teacher will need to organize the hangouts and resources and have them ready to pass out to the class prior to the start of the assembly.

Steps:

First have the students get into groups.
Then pass out the first handout, Shannon's Story.
Give the students 10 minutes to read Shannon's Story either to themselves or within their group.
Then pass out the second handout, Looking at Shannon and Greg's Situation.
Give the students another 10 miuntes to discuss and answer the questions on the handout.
Then use the last 10 minutes to discuss the answers to those questions on the second handout.
The teacher should have each group talk about their answer for one of the questions and their reasoning as to why they chose that answer based on what they read in the story and their knowledge from the lesson on cyberbullying in teen dating abuse taught prior to the activity.

Assesment:

Students should be able to reiterate the warning signs associated with technology and social media in teen dating abuse.

Evaluation:

We will gauge how much they abosrbed from the lesson if they can answer our follow up questions during the activity.

Lesson 3: Sexting, Self-Esteem, and Peer Pressure

Nearly 1 in 2 teens who have been in a dating relationship report being controlled, threatened, and pressured to do things they did not want to do.
The survey by Liz Claiborne, Inc. also pointed to types of high-tech-facilitated psychological abuse other than excessive monitoring and insults, such as:
- “Relational aggression” involving the use of technology to spread rumors designed to damage a partner’s friendships or reputation.
- Teens used information posted on a networking site against a partner, used technology to demand unwanted sex, shared private or embarrassing photos or videos, or used technology to threaten a partner with physical harm.
- Other research on technology and dating abuse draws attention to the abusive technologically facilitated actions associated with “sexting.”
  - “Sexting” is sending nude, seminude, or provocative pictures or video of yourself or others via cell phone.
  - Some experts estimate that “sexting” among minors (under 18 years of age) involves roughly 20% of teen girls.
  - Depending on the definition of sexting used, studies have found that between 13% and 31% of teens have received “sexting” messages or photos, and between 4% and 19% have sent them, with girls more often the senders than boys.
  - These images are often taken when under the influence of peer pressure, or in response to threats or coercion by a partner.
  - Once teens are sexually intimate, it is common that the girl is asked to share at least one nude or sexual image or video with the boy.
  - Some teen girls will share a nude image with a boy they are seeing instead of being sexually intimate or to delay intimacy.
  - Even if the boy never voluntarily shares the image with anyone else, his friends, siblings, or parents may stumble across it when using or searching his devices.
  - Some boys have used knowledge of a girl having posed for a sexting or sexing image to extort them into taking more sexual pictures or engage in sex acts with them.
Teens’ and their peers’ perceptions of whether violence is acceptable within romantic relationships might depend on the level of violence they witness at school or in their neighborhood.
When considering how peers might shape dating experiences, it is important to consider not only the context of teens’ close peer group but also the larger school and community contexts in which teens and their peers interact.
The experiences that teens witness or perceive their peers to have within romantic relationships might shape teens’ perceptions of what is normal or acceptable in their own romantic relationships.
It is critical to consider the very public nature of teens’ romantic relationships.
Teen couples often interact in the presence of their peers either at school or another public setting like the mall or movie theater, thus interactions that occur in public, or that happen in private but are shared with peers, might quickly become public knowledge to the larger peer network especially in today's digital world.
Technology and the use of social media allows teens to disseminate information quickly and widely.
As a result, when relationships become violent or unhealthy in other ways, teens are at risk for experiencing embarrassment, being publicly ridiculed, or developing negative reputations among their peers.
- These concerns are very real to teens; they have to contend with their image among close friends and the larger peer network on a daily basis.
The presence of peers might instigate, elevate or reduce the likelihood of teen dating violence, depending on the situation.
- Example: If a girl hits a boy in front of his friends, the boy might feel pressure to “save face” and hit her in return.

Lesson Plan 3 Template

Who is this for?

Sacramento high school students, teachers, and staff at an assembly. Student age range is 13-18 years old. Parents are also encouraged to attend the assembly.

Objective:

This activity teaches health decision-making, empathy, and allows students to determine their own value in a relationship by putting them in the shoes of someone deciding "that they would do" in a given situtation. The activity introduces students to behaviors within a dating relationship that could be defined as unhealthy or abusive.

Materials needed for this lesson:

Dating relationship scenario cards
Paper for notes
Pen/Pencil

Set up:

Develop 30-40 dating relationship scenario cards that each name a behavior that could be found in an abusive teen dating relationship. Evenly distribute the behaviors between unhealthy and abusive to the groups of students.

Steps:

Set ground rules for respect in the group to promote a safe space.
Distribute at least one dating relationship card to each student in the class.
Explain that each card contains an example of a behavior that might be present in an unhealthy or abusive dating relationship.
Instruct each student to read the card and consider what they might do if that action were occurring in their relationship: “stay together” “let’s talk about it” or “it’s over.”
Have each student read their card out loud and tell the rest of the group which category they think the behavior should be placed in and why.
Record each response by category on paper or the board as students go around.
At each card, facilitate a short conversation. Allow students to make suggestions as to what they may or may not do and why.

Assesment:

The students will have small group discussions regarding each of their dating relationship scenarios and well as a larger group discussion with the whole class.

Evaluation:

The students should be able to identify the warning signs of an unhealthy and abusive relationship and whether that behavior is acceptable or not when discussing our follow up questions during the activity.

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