I am writing this week from Austin, TX where I am attending the
biannual meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, or SRA. SRA is an interdisciplinary
society focused on the theoretical, empirical, and policy research issues of
adolescence. These issues can range from biological development through
the pubertal transition to risky driving to parent child relationships to
social media use. Given that the mission of ScienceForWomen.org is to share recent
research findings with all of you, I thought I would highlight the findings
from one of the symposia I attended.
This symposia was on cyberbullying, which is a problem for
many of the children and adolescents I have treated, but has also been featured
in the news of late. What was most striking at the outset of this presentation
was the international and ubiquitous presence of cyberbullying in the lives of
young people today. The presenters in this talk were Sarah Coyne
of Brigham Young University, Stacey Bradbury
of Bowling Green State University, Kay
Bussey of Macquarie University, and Cigdem Topcu, Middle
East Technicial Univerisity.
Cyberbullying can be defined in many ways, as I learned
while listening to these experts today. For our purposes we can simply define
it as using forms of digital media and communication to hurt another person.
For some people this can be spreading rumors, editing photographs of people in embarrassing
ways, intentionally excluding a person from events or activities, or
anonymously and/or publicly threatening or insulting a person.
As a child & adolescent clinical psychologist, I see
cyberbullying play a very negative role in the maintenance of low self-esteem,
social anxiety, depression, and eating disorders every single day. Despite my
tendency to be an early adopter of new technology, I am also a person who didn’t
grow up in the world of Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, I can’t necessarily
relate to the experiences of being vulnerable to some of the nasty, degrading,
exclusionary, and humiliating experiences that could occur 7 days a week, 24
hours per day for today’s school-aged youth.
The overarching theme of these talks centered on who is at
risk for being cyberbullied, who kids disclose these experiences to, how kids
cope with cyberbullying, and what we can do about it as adults in their lives.
I won’t go into my usual detail about how each of the studies addressed these
questions, but I will lend my summary and interpretation of their findings.
First, it’s pretty clear that middle school is the time when
cyberbullying becomes a big problem, for girls first and then for boys. This
may be because girls are more social, and therefore have more motivation to
engage in multiple types of social interactions. This could also be because
boys predominantly engage in cyberbullying of a sexual nature, and they develop
later in that arena than girls. Related to this, patterns of cyberbullying don’t
appear to be much different than typical gender and age differences in the use
of relational aggression. This is reassuring in some ways because
psychologists, parents, and teachers have been helping to teach their children
not to use aggression for a very long time. This is not new. Unfortunately, we
have been studying childhood relational aggression so well, we know that
aggression is best prevented rather than treated, and the best time to
intervene is during the preschool-early school-aged years. So, all the more
reason for us to continue teaching our youngest the importance of interpersonal
problem solving without tying
to hurt others, which will not only prevent traditional aggression but also its
newest manifestation, cyberbullying.
That point was even further solidified by the next study,
which looked at how kids cope with cyberbullying differently than traditional
bullying. The short story is: they don’t. Kids who were able to cope with in
person bullying, or relational aggression, were also able to cope with
cyberbullying. The coping strategies measured in this study were problem
solving (thinking carefully about how to react to a distressing situation in
order to achieve your goals), distancing (taking a third person’s perspective
on the situation in order to react less emotionally), distraction (engaging
your mind in a neutral or enjoyable activity in order to reduce the immediate
negative emotions of the situation), and retaliation (trying to do to another
what they did to you). Kids who reported “effective coping” or the lack of long
term negative perceptions of cyberbullying experiences and believed that what
they did was helpful, did so in both traditional and cyberbullying experiences.
There were no differences in their perceptions of impact for either if they
used adaptive coping through problem-solving, distraction, or distancing,
instead of retaliation. So, as a parent or a teacher who is tasked with helping
children deal with the stress of growing up in this day and age, these skills
are widely applicable.
Another of the presentations focused on children’s
disclosure of bullying experiences. What they found was that children prefer to
disclose bullying experiences to people who can help, either by helping deal
with it or intervening effectively. Imagine that! They found that girls were
more likely to disclose to their mothers, while boys were more likely to
disclose to their friends. Unfortunately, teachers were not a preferred
confidante in cases of bullying or cyberbullying, likely because teachers
report that there is little they can do to help and kids report little faith in
their teachers to intervene. In an effort to do my duty as a psychologist, I
would like to remind all people who take care of children of the diffusion of
responsibility: if a child is being bullied, be that in person or via the
internet or by the spreading of cruel rumors or exclusion from activities, you
should help them or no one else will.
One of the audience members asked the panel of speakers
whether adult intervention is sometimes more hurtful than helpful because it
could result in more bullying. I thought this was a great question given the
complex social dynamics of high school. One of the speakers responded that
adolescents are always benefitted by adult involvement when being bullying. Now
slow down, this does not mean
fighting your kids’ battles, this means providing your support by listening to
them and helping them cope. Dealing with the problem directly for your child
will only allow them to avoid developing effective interpersonal skills which
will be useful when they have colleagues, roommates, partners, and bosses. Alternatively,
there are likely effective school- or community-based ways to systemically
address or reduce the occurrence of bullying in the lives of children generally.
Providing the support of being a confidante and helping kids practice
effective, non-retaliative, coping skills helps kids feel better which is the
most important outcome, even if it doesn’t stop the occurrence of bullying.
Perhaps even more informative, the experts were clear that,
at this point in history, somewhere around 80% of youth social interactions
occur electronically and that simply taking access away creates more problems
than it solves. In my clinical work I have come across countless well-intended
parents whose solution for the negative impact of cyberbullying and social
media on their child’s mental health has been to eliminate their child’s access
to it altogether. Under most
circumstances, that decision would further isolate youth from their positive
peer relationships, thus increasing their risk and even perpetuating their
problems with depression, self-esteem, and anxiety. Instead, parents can familiarize themselves with how to use different social networking and gaming programs to help kids to establish privacy settings. This will help bullies have less access while still allowing the child to feel trusted and not isolated from their friends.
In summary, the most important message to be taken away from
these talks is that even though we didn’t grow up with the threat or experience
of cyberbullying, we are not useless in helping kids deal with these
experiences. The skills we learned while growing up (distancing, distraction,
and problem-solving) are just as helpful when facing cyberbullying as they are
with everything else.
Dubow, E.F. (Chair, March, 2014) Cyberbullying and Cyber Victimization in Early Adolescence: Coping,
Disclosure, and Implications for Intervention. Symposium conducted at the
meeting of the Society for Research on Adoescence, Austin, TX.
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