Young Scot Says Who? Cyberbullying Report

From the 31st August until 31st December 2010 Young Scot hosted a series of consultations and surveys on its bespoke consultation website www.youngscotsayswho.org This report details the results of the Cyberbullying survey which was completed by 42 people.

Views 

Definition:

The large majority of those who took the survey defined cyberbullying as bullying using “phones, computers, social networks,” and other forms of digital media. From this a number of people went on to describe their own experiences of cyberbullying.

Experience:

 By and large experiences of cyberbullying was defined as “name-calling,” others received threats of physical violence, and one reported that people were “making groups about her”, though it is not explained specifically what these groups were about. 

Magnitude:

The majority of those who took the survey said that cyberbullying was either “quite a big problem” or “a very big problem”. Some raised the issue of anonymity and the part it plays in reassuring the cyberbullies that they won’t be caught, “it is easy to say something nasty online to somebody because you don’t have to say it to their face”. Others highlighted the indifference of schools to deal with the problem as “it doesn’t happen on school grounds”. This was by no means a uniform opinion, however, with around a quarter saying it was not a big problem. Two respondents cited the media as an influence on how broad a problem people perceive it to be:

I hear about it on the news quite often, but i personally do not know of anyone who has been cyberbullied. Therefore i think it's a problem; but not a massive one.

[Cyberbullying is] not as huge as the media makes out it is.

Actions

The survey then asked the respondents to think what they would do if a friend or relative confided in them that they were being cyberbullied. The majority agreed that the best course of action was to tackle the problem by reporting the bullying to a parent, teacher or police. Of these three options the police was the preferred option to report to:

I would urge them to keep any conversations they have, not to retaliate, tell someone that they trust and get in touch with police to let them know of the situation.

I would tell them to keep all of the bully's messages and the friend's/relative's replies, tell them not to insult them back, report it to the website moderators if it was happening on a website and contact the police.

Around a fifth felt that the best course of action for dealing with the problem was to block the bully, delete the messages in question, and would even go so far as to delete their social networking profile to end the bullying. The final fifth suggested dealing with the bully directly, either through diplomacy or otherwise:

i would talk to the person who is doing it and tell them to stop.

i would find out who was bullying them and pick a fight with them.

When asked what they would do if a fake profile was setup using their personal details and images on sites such as Bebo or Facebook the responses were largely comparable. The vast majority felt that the best course of action was to report the cyberbullying, either to a teacher, a parent, the police, or the website directly. Some were unsure what they would do and again some felt that contacting the bully directly was the best course of action.

 Who acts

On the subject of who should act and what they should do there were plenty of calls for schools and teachers to do more to help young people. This help falls into different categories, namely prevention and cure. Many respondents felt schools should do more to teach young people how to protect themselves from cyberbullying, and to explain that it is as serious as traditional bullying. It was proposed this could take place in PSE lessons:

Teachers need to incorporate [cyberbullying] in to PSE under the bullying section and highlight it a lot seeing as computers and texting are a thing of the future and it will only get worse.

Teach them about the internet and how to keep their websites private and safe. Also teach children about it in PSE.

Explain that's just as unacceptable as offline bullying.

Alongside this preventative work it was suggested a programme of guidance should be developed in schools to help victims of cyberbullying:

Encourage them to speak up if they are cyberbullied and where they can go to tell someone.

Have an already set up support 'unit' or system so that if someone needs help there are various things they can do.

It was also felt parents should be involved in educating their children from an early age about the dangers of cyberbullying, and how to protect yourself from it.

Other agencies, with the exception of the police, were not mentioned, nor were politicians, though this could be due to the wording of the question which referenced parents and teachers specifically.