Stop teens becoming cyber bullies
Psychologist says conversation needed over young people and social media
As police investigate shocking online threats to Auckland students aged as young as 12, an internet watchdog and a respected child psychologist have spoken about how to prevent children becoming cyber bullies.
The Herald revealed this week that police were investigating a complaint from an Auckland high school over threatening messages posted on Snapchat.
Students on Auckland’s North Shore said they had been left in fear after receiving death and rape threats from an anonymous account.
The complaint being investigated related to a message sent to a Westlake Girls High School student.
Figures compiled by Netsafe reveal one in every five Kiwi teens have been the subject of some form of online bullying.
Netsafe has resources for young people, and their parents, on how to combat online harassment — but child psychologist Dr Emma Woodward said more emphasis needed to be placed on identifying ways to help avoid teens from becoming cyber bullies. “Our brains are not yet evolved to develop alongside technology because technology has developed much faster than we can as living organisms,” said Woodward. “We need to make sure we are raising children who are emotionally literate.”
Woodward, founder of The Child Psychology Service, said people tend to bully others when their own emotional experiences are not organised in a healthy way.
She added children are not given as many opportunities to develop healthy emotional regulations when technology is involved.
Social media was initially set up as a way to connect people, but had now started to disconnect teens from reality, she said. “We teach kids from a young age these days to use technology as a form of escapism from everyday life and the uncomfortable emotions that we do not want to deal with.
“We model it ourselves and we now use technology as a means of comforting children.”
Cyber-bullying became an essential part of the escapism for some teens, Woodward said.
The online harassment was often a discharge of uncomfortable emotions that people struggled to deal with — instead they resort to passing them onto somebody else.
The internet provides the perfect vehicle to do this anonymously and there are often no or very little consequences, Woodward said.
Woodward encouraged a nationwide conversation with young people surrounding social media, not only to establish safety against cyberbullying but to prevent young people from becoming bullies themselves.
She said instilling honesty, empathy and accountability into young Kiwis would help prevent the growing rate of cyber-bullying.
“A restorative approach is the best one in order for them to change their behaviour instead of hiding it. It aids connections — what’s missing when you bully someone online is that connection. It makes the other person a human being.”
Netsafe has previously highlighted how a third of Kiwi teens spend over four hours of their day either passively consuming social media or actively posting online.
One in four teens also said they would be “devastated” if they lost access to their technology and social media.
Martin Cocker, chief executive, said that although we can generalise that cyber-bullying has similar short and long-term effects as “school-yard” bullying, what really sets it apart is how intrusive it is, as victims can be targeted in the classroom, at work, on the bus or alone at home.