Extraordinary Stories

Taming the Trolls

为什么网络欺凌如此普遍，我们如何保护自己和孩子？

由Courtney Suciu.

In June 2019, the World Anti-Bullying Forum convened in Dublin, “aimed at broadening understanding of bullying in educational settings.”

According to a news release from the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published by the U.S. Federal News Service¹, cyberbullying was addressed as special topic, with online harassment on the rise.

“欧洲七个国家的数据表明，使用互联网的11-16岁儿童比例从2010年的7％增加到2010年的7％，”报告读书。

The consequences of being a victim of bullying are significant. Children who are bullied are more than twice as likely to miss school, the report noted, and “they are more likely to expect to leave formal education after finishing secondary school. Children who are bullied score lower in mathematics and reading tests, and the more often they are bullied, the worse their score.”

With the problem only worsening, it’s critical that we take proactive measures to protect ourselves and our children. The first step is understanding what cyberbullying is. What behaviors does it encompass and who does it affect? Why is it so common? And is there hope for a safer, kinder cyber world of the future?

Defining cyberbullying

In the book欺负和年轻人², cyberbullying is described in pragmatic terms as:

The deliberate use of social media platforms, information and communication technologies, new media technologies (i.e. email, phones, chatrooms, discussion groups, applications, instant messaging, blogs, video clips, cameras, hate websites/pages, blogs and gaming sites) to repeatedly harass, threaten, humiliate and victimize another with the intention to cause harm, reputation damage, discomfort and intimidation.

但是，在她的论文中The Online Culture of Cyberbullying³莫莉 - 格洛丽亚哈珀提供了对概念的更为理论的理解。Harper观看网络欺凌是“只有具有现代青年文化的技术和社交媒体的耦合，只能存在于文化构建的现象。”

哈珀指出，对于前几代，青年文化已经与叛乱有关，“数字一代”是不寻常的，也许可能比年轻人在数十年过去已经挥舞着更多的影响。

作为一个例子，她近年来看着社交媒体的迁移崛起。首先由那些18-24岁，通过Facebook，Twitter和Instagram沟通的沟通现在在大多数年龄段中都无处不在。

虽然年轻人在塑造主流文化方面的角色深远（思考岩石和嘻哈，时尚趋势，俚语等），但哈珀认为“数字代，”通过其使用社交媒体平台- 因此，他们互动的方式 - 引发了“对文化的系统变化”。

In other words, youth culture’s embrace of digital communication hasn’t only changed the way individuals interact socially, but how society interacts at large.

So, what does this have to do with cyberbullying? Harper explained:

Adolescence is a time where youth attempt to establish smaller communities of like-minded peers with the larger culture in attempts to gain an understanding of themselves and experiment with new things and indulge in what is interesting to them. Previously this was predominantly done in neighborhoods, playgrounds, and school yards – anywhere youth would hang out.

As young people struggle to figure out who they are and where they fit in, they have always been susceptible to bullying – and possibly, to bullying others. What’s changed is that digital interactions have largely displaced face-to-face contact.

一方面，能够在更广泛的各种位置与更广泛的人沟通，使得能够更容易找到姐妹的同伴的那些较小的社区。另一方面，它还增加了利用，骚扰，羞辱和其他滥用的机会。

虽然我们所有人都容易受到网络欺凌的影响，但在社会发展中，在这个关键时期受害的人的后果可能是特别损害。

The psychological impact of victimization

Dr. Joshua Taylor, who is featured in the counselor-training videoExploring Cyber-Bullying in the 21st Century: What Every Counselor Needs to Know, andWhat Young People Really Think!⁴请注意，“我在与年轻人交谈中有关网络欺凌的事情之一是有意义的，没有人会保护它们。欺凌不会停止。“

In interviews with young victims of cyberbullying, it’s easy to understand why they feel this way.

Taylor spoke with a young woman named Shayna who discussed how integral social media is in her life. Because she has many online connections in another country, she relies on digital communication to keep in touch with them and for this reason, like a lot of teenagers, “my cell phone is always with me, it's always on.”

But, as a consequence, that means she never gets a break from the constant feedback she’s receiving via social media, and this can interfere with her daily activity and wellbeing. “If someone says something to me, I instantly get it…If you get something instantly that’s negative, it kind of just stops everything you are doing.”

“I think a lot of people,” Shayna added, meaning the adults in her life, “think it's easier to ignore if it's online because you can just read it and go, okay, whatever.”

But it’s not easy to ignore a constant bombardment of the kind of criticism she described:

My first instance of cyberbullying was with my boyfriend at the time and we had, like, a good face to face relationship but then any time we were on Facebook or on MSN he would tell me things like, 'Oh, you looked really fat today.' or like, 'You had a really big lunch.' Just like mean things that just, like, tore down my self-esteem. Made me feel really bad about myself.

结果，Shayna，他认为自己是一个典型的喧闹的，外向的人，变得自我意识，并停止与她的其他朋友共度时光。“我总是悲惨，”她说，这种情况加剧了她对自我伤害的强迫。

She said, “cutting was the only way, the only thing that I really had control over and the only way that I could, like, as dumb as it sounds, make me feel better about myself.”

谢娜-显示,大部分治疗师她saw to help her deal with the cutting were dismissive of “the whole bullying subject,” and Taylor explained why this is a major concern:

This is a very serious issue because cyber bullying is comorbid with a lot of conditions. Depression, substance abuse, obsessive compulsive behaviors, self-injuring behaviors. So, it's not so much ‘why cyber-bullying?’ but really more of ‘how does cyber bullying play a role in many of the mental health issues that we tackle on a day-to-day basis?’

When young people don’t feel supported or validated by the adults they turn to for help, it can only increase their feelings of hopelessness and isolation. For this reason, Taylor said, “I think it's very important to convey this message that if they come forward and they talk to someone about it, that as clinicians, as educators, as parents, we're going to do everything that we can to protect that young person.”

What is the solution?

When it comes to the prevention of cyberbullying, Taylor suggested it begins with parents, educators, counselors and adults in general:

它从美国建模适当的行为，对我们周围的人建模的同情和善意。年轻人不要出来婴儿欺凌。他们学习它。他们从我们这里学习。如果我们真的希望谈谈如何解决如何解决网络欺凌，我认为它从我们开始。

While he’s right that we can all make a better effort to treat each other with more respect and civility, other experts in cyberbullying believe the solutions to this problem might have to be executed within the cybersphere itself, built into the technology.

In her dissertationDesigning Cyberbullying Prevention and Mitigation Tools⁵, Zahara Ashktorab “employ[ed] multidisciplinary methods to evaluate data generated by teens on social media and work[ed] with teens to develop and test potential cyberbullying mitigation solutions.”

Ashktorab argued that “solutions focused on improving users’ wellbeing after being targeted online offer designers a valuable tool in fighting back against the harm caused by cyberbullying” and based on the interdisciplinary studies conducted in her dissertation, provided recommendations for the design of cyberbullying prevention and mitigation tools.

“I argue that the complex nature of cyberbullying made more challenging by the affordances of social media, cannot be solved through strictly algorithmic approaches,” she wrote.

In other words, online abuse isn’t going to be remedied through creating computer programs that overlook the actual, personal experiences of those who suffer the most harm.

Because the motivations of teenagers using social media and other digital spaces are often very different from – and poorly understood by – their adult counterparts, designers and programmers may not take into consideration the factors and features that can abet online harassment and abuse.

“近年来，”Ashktorab解释说：“为网络欺凌预防设计的几次尝试没有包括受影响最大的人的视角：年轻人。”

In contrast, she looked at potential technical solutions that take into account data and insights about, and provided by, teenagers and their online habits and experiences. It’s a revolutionary perspective that can change – or perhaps even save – the lives of young people like Shayna.

But these things take time. Such cyberbullying prevention and mitigation tools have yet to actually be developed. Ashktorab concluded her dissertation with suggestions for future studies to evaluate the effectiveness and functionality of her design recommendations.

与此同时，泰勒的建议并有助于减缓和预防网络欺凌。我们可以认真对待，并支持那些遭受在线虐待的年轻人。

也许我们都可以更好地努力在网上（和关闭）更好地模拟更尊重和同情的行为。

笔记：

1. 世界反欺凌论坛揭示了关于欺凌的新证据。（2019年6月25日）。US Fed News Service, Including US State News。ProquestOne Academic。
2. Healey, J. (Ed.). (2018).欺负和年轻人。可用ProquestOne Academic。
3. 哈珀，M。（2017）。The Online Culture of Cyberbullying: Examining the Cycle of Subcultures Through Media Constructions of Cyberbullying As a Deviant Youth Internet Phenomenon。（订单号10268485）。可用ProquestOne Academic。
4. Microtraining Associates (Producer). (2012).Exploring Cyber-Bullying in the 21st Century: What Every Counselor Needs to Know, and What Young People Really Think![视频文件]。可用ProquestOne Academic。
5. Ashktorab, Z. (2017).Designing Cyberbullying Prevention and Mitigation Tools(Order No. 10615598). Available fromProquestOne Academic。

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Courtney Suciu is ProQuest’s lead blog writer. Her loves include libraries, literacy and researching extraordinary stories related to the arts and humanities. She has a Master’s Degree in English literature and a background in teaching, journalism and marketing. Follow her @QuirkySuciu

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