What do a high school student who's a bullying prevention activist, two criminology professors and Safer Internet Day (February 11) have in common? They're all sending the same message that safety and wellbeing online takes all of us. The student Aidan McDaniel the student activist says school safety happens from the ground (the students) up. Social cruelty both online and offline isn't a … [Read more...] about Safer Internet Day 2014: The global safety collaborative
Justin Patchin
‘Bullying Experiment’ video: What’s wrong with this picture?
You may have seen "The Bullying Experiment" video that has gone viral (as of this writing, 3.1 million views on YouTube). Two actors stage a bullying incident (the bigger one threatening and pushing around the other) a bunch of times in various locations on a university campus. The "experiment" is apparently about seeing whether unsuspecting observers step in and try to stop the "bullying," and to … [Read more...] about ‘Bullying Experiment’ video: What’s wrong with this picture?
Students in social media: There’s monitoring & then there’s monitoring
There's an upside and a serious downside to monitoring students in social media, and the upside doesn't involve outsourcing (that was an understatement). You'll see what I'm talking about when you get to the downside down there, but let's start with where and how it would actually help.… In her thoughtful commentary, "What inner city kids know about social media, and why we should listen," … [Read more...] about Students in social media: There’s monitoring & then there’s monitoring
Cyberbullying ‘neither an epidemic nor a rarity’: Researchers
This has been stated before but not seen (or reported) enough: Cyberbullying is not an epidemic, even though news reports about it seem to have reached epidemic proportions. The last six surveys of "random samples" of students nationwide by two of the US's top researchers on the subject – Profs. Justin Patchin and Sameer Hinduja of the Cyberbullying Research Center – found that 18.8-29.2% … [Read more...] about Cyberbullying ‘neither an epidemic nor a rarity’: Researchers
‘Compassion mobs’ & other digital-age nonviolence stands
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 huge ripple effect by students in Nova Scotia, Iowa, Minnesota, … [Read more...] about ‘Compassion mobs’ & other digital-age nonviolence stands