Seemingly overnight, COVID-19 completely shifted our lives. For children and teens especially, this has meant spending more time than ever online. Nearly every aspect of their lives – from classroom learning to extra-curricular activities and hanging out with friends – now takes place, in part, behind a screen.
While social media platforms, apps, and video conferencing can help young people stay connected to their peers, it has also led to . Recent studies have shown that the majority of children and teens who had experienced online hate and violence before the COVID-19 . In Canada, calls to the Kids Help Phone crisis line .
Experts have suggested that incidents of online hate and violence may be on the rise due to mental health concerns; COVID-19 has triggered specific stressors for young people including parental job loss and health anxiety. Stressors such as these . But as we enter both the fourth wave of the pandemic and a new school year, it is clear we need better strategies to address this phenomenon known as cyberbullying.
What is cyberbullying?
Since the rise of the internet in the early 2000s, parents, educators, and even legislators have had an increasing awareness of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is defined as This can look like derogatory or hateful comments on a selfie posted on social media, a constant stream of negative private messages, or – in severe cases – direct threats of sexual or physical violence. Canadian research has found that , while additional research found that .
Even though cyberbullying does not happen face-to-face, it is still serious and can cause real and substantial harms for young people: depression, insecurity, embarrassment, anxiety, avoidance of the internet and/or school, lower grades, and , to name just a few. Online violence and, in extreme cases, .
Cyberbullying can also affect certain groups more than others. has shown that 30 percent of 2SLGBTQIA+ students experience some form of cyberbullying compared with only eight percent of cisgender, heterosexual respondents. And as many high-profile cases in the news and in the courts have shown us, young women are more vulnerable to severe forms of cyberbullying including , , and . , the risks for cyberbullying do not solely come from technology use; they are also social.
What Can Be Done?
Though cyberbullying receives a large amount public attention, there is limited research on how to address it. And now more than ever, we need solutions. As schools gradually begin re-opening this fall, concerns remain that students who experienced cyberbullying at home will now face harassment in both digital and physical contexts.
Teachers play a pivotal role in the prevention and intervention of cyberbullying and are often placed in leadership roles to try to address it, which can be done in a variety of different ways. They can focus on whole-classroom strategies by and using class time to . Other strategies can focus either on those who cyberbully by or on those who experience it by .
But we cannot expect individual teachers to address cyberbullying without support. Research has shown , and . Even my own research has shown that Quebec high-school teachers feel ill-equipped and under-trained when faced with bullying in the classroom.Â
It is clear we need a holistic approach – one that engages teachers, parents, and students. Future research could explore opinions from these groups on how best to address online violence in teacher training programs, in the classroom, among students themselves, and beyond. Cyberbullying will not be solved overnight. But as the pandemic continues sheds light on its prevalence, it is crucial we start doing the work needed to make learning environments and online spaces safer for everyone.
Farah Roxanne Stonebanks is a master’s student in McGill's Department of Integrated Studies in Education. She holds an undergraduate degree in psychology. Her research interests include bullying behaviours, anti-bullying initiatives, and how schools can better work towards effective prevention and reaction to negative occurrences between students.
