Cyberland

As technology becomes more and more of a necessity in daily life, the prevalence of cyberbullying is equally increasing. In the United States, 46% of teens between the ages of 13 and 17 have reported experiencing cyberbullying in some form. We wish to develop a desktop/mobile application that will increase adolescents’ awareness and prevention skills to cope with cyberbullying perpetration behaviors. Our client is Eyüp Sabır Erbiçer, a PhD student at Hacettepe University and a visiting scholar of the School of Education in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at UNC. His research largely focuses on cyberbullying among adolescents in Turkey and the relationship between coping strategies and cyberbullying perpetration behaviors. 

The client currently has a Turkish application in development which is meant to increase adolescents’ awareness and prevention skills to cope with cyberbullying perpetration behaviors. They reached out to us to make an English version of the application to put in American app stores.

The mobile application, Cyberland, aims to teach high school students about cyberbullying behaviors through the gamification of learning modules. Within the app, students are responsible for the maintaining the safety of Cyberland City, which is vulnerable to cyberbullying attacks. Students are motivated to complete different modules/tasks associated with cyberbullying identification and prevention in order to protect Cyberland City against these bullying behaviors. As students move through different modules and tasks, they are exposed to videos, articles, or mini games that will have to be completed in order to unlock new tasks and increase safety in their city. Additionally, students have an avatar that they can customize as they move along their learning modules to encourage them to learn more about cyberbullying behaviors.

Additionally, users have an avatar they can customize as they move along their learning modules to encourage them to learn more about cyberbullying behaviors. The application will open to a page with seven icons, each describing different levels the user must go through to complete their learning and protect Cyberland. Users can navigate to Cyberland by clicking on one of the seven icons and then watch their city grow and protect itself against cyberbullying behaviors. Our team will be using the Godot game engine for development, following the structure of the previous team, which allows for the creation of a 2D, cross-platform game.