NetFamilyNews.orgThey’re “healthy divas,” not drama queens, people. Two very different things, the Wall Street Journal points out. The distinction and the reported emergence of this positive kind of diva in media culture might be a positive for kids who, when they have time for entertainment, lean toward the celebrity-watch variety – not to mention for [...]
Remember Formspring.me? Three years ago some terrible trolling that reportedly involved teens in New Jersey made the site, which announced it was shutting down* last month, a national news story in the US. Teens’ viral adoption of Formspring and its format (ask a question, get an anonymous answer) reportedly took the site by surprise. Disturbing [...]
This was good to see: What looked like a truly anti-social media company, game developer Square Enix, saw irresponsibility for what it was and quickly reversed a stupid marketing decision. I’d like to take it as a sign that – in this very social media environment where users are co-producers with the providers of their [...]
What a project and what a service to anybody trying to get a handle on a long-standing social problem! I’m referring to the recently released “Bullying in a Networked Era: A Literature Review” of more than 150 surveys, articles and other references from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, the latest [...]
You’ve probably heard the phrase “kill ‘em with kindness” for disarming detractors, well in social media it’s more like swamping – flooding – public, sometimes collective, cruelty with kindness, acceptance, respect, etc. That was a powerful tactic used by students I wrote about in Part 1 of this series, but it has been practiced to [...]
A just-released study from the American Academy of Pediatrics found that cyberbullying is “only rarely the sole factor identified in teen suicides.” The study’s author, John LeBlanc, MD, was quoted in the press release as saying that “cyberbullying is a factor in some suicides, but almost always there are other factors such as mental illness [...]
This is how it’s done in social media. Viral kindness. If social cruelty can get piled on in social media, so can compassion. Just watch “We Are All Daniel Cui,” which shows how more than 100 students at Hillsborough High School in northern California defeated cyberbullying by swamping it with support for soccer goalie Daniel [...]
This article was originally published June 12, 2012, then my service’s server crashed, losing months of data. So reposting 9/29/12. Now for the good news in the youth part of a report from Ottawa-based MediaSmarts’s report “Talking to Youth and Parents about Life Online” (yesterday I highlighted the parents piece). Well, mostly good news. It [...]
Well, two great back-to-school messages, actually. I’ll get to the one from two organizations in a minute. First, one from a parent: At a time when so many families are feeling swamped with stuff added to schedules and school supplies lists – and that’s on top of run-of-the-mill, everyday parental pressures that probably include worries [...]
This is how safety, citizenship, and social change work best in social media. Count on students to lead the way. “After a bullying Twitter account at Linn-Mar High School [in Marion, Iowa] spurred copycats in Iowa City,” students at West High School in the latter city adopted countermeasures, the Iowa City Press Citizen reports. Their [...]
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