Cyberbullying may fly under the radar during pandemic
As schools prepare to start, most parents, teachers, and students may be preoccupied with COVID-19 issues. However, there’s something else that SFU education professor Wanda Cassidy is “quite worried about”. With stressed-out parents, overwhelmed teachers, and anxious students, Cassidy said by phone that she’s concerned that attention to cyberbullying may “fall between the cracks”.
Although she said she knows cyberbullying will happen—whether students receive education in class or online—she fears that pandemic-related stress may compound things.
“Society as a whole is on edge, and that’s going to fi lter down to kids,” she said.
As cyberbullying is one of her main areas of study, she said it usually starts, she explained, in adolescence, “when young people are trying to position themselves in a group” and are experiencing heightened insecurity. Research reveals, she said, that about one-third of students participate in or are victims of cyberbullying. Contrary to stereotypes, she said, anyone can be a bully or victim, including those who are popular. She said international research has shown that females participate more often in relationship aggression or cyberbullying—which, she said, is about power and control within friendship groups—than males, who tend to bully more physically or in person. For instance, she said if one girl aspires to be a group’s leader, “she has to mobilize the other students in that group to target one or two of those members”, such as excluding the target from online exchanges or posting something unflattering about the victim on social media. However, she said that bullies “don’t come out unscathed”, as their own self-regard may lower after hurting someone—or roles may reverse if a victim retaliates.
UBC psychology professor Amori Mikami, who researches peer relationships, said by phone that it’s untrue that all online interactions are a “shallow or poor substitute for face to face” presence. She said with techsavvy teens, there’s “a lot that can happen in the online world that is extremely meaningful and consequently can either be very fulfilling or—on the downside, with things like cyberbullying—extremely hurtful”. In fact, she said that cyberbullying can be more hurtful than in-person bullying because “it’s on display for this wide audience instantly”.
She explained that there are a “shocking number of similarities between a person’s online and offl ine interactions”. Interacting with the same social circle in person and online can be fi ne for those with positive relationships, she said, but cyberbullying victims may experience a “double
whammy” of online and offl ine attacks.
And although she said she suspects that those with strong relationships are finding social fulfillment during the pandemic through online and other means with peers, teachers, and parents—which can help them keep what happens online in perspective— youth who don’t have those connections may be having a “tough and lonely time”.
Yet some youth can also fi nd peer relationships in chatrooms or online video games. Mikami said that studies her lab conducted about alternate-reality video games found that friendships between players “can have positive contributions to players’ mood and well-being”.
Because cyberbullying is a relational issue, SFU’s Cassidy said that if peers say it’s unacceptable, teens are more likely to listen to them than an adult, in order to maintain friendships or else risk losing power and prestige. “Empowering bystanders seems to be one of the most effective ways to curtail bullying and cyberbullying,” she said.
Both Cassidy and Mikami also recommend that adults—from parents to teachers—should consider the community they’re creating.
For Mikami, it’s the everyday interactions that principals and teachers have with each other and students—creating a model to follow, cultivating a “climate of inclusivity and respect”, and showing that “they genuinely care about students”—that she thinks can be “very powerful” and that she said Lower Mainland teachers are very skilled at.
Cassidy said ongoing discussions—such as about whether students feel a sense of belonging or what to do when feelings are hurt—are important to ensure that students feel their voices are heard and are part of decision-making and leadership processes.
One other thing that Cassidy recommends to counter cyberbullying can be expressed by paraphrasing a certain provincial health officer: “Be cyberkind, be calm, be safe”.