Click tabs and you’ll find here activity guides links video quiz game about the topic
What is cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying is when someone uses the internet to be mean to a child or young person so they feel bad or upset. It can happen on a social media site, game, app, or any other online or electronic service or platform. It can include: posts, comments, texts, messages, chats, livestreams, memes, images, videos and emails.
These are some examples of ways the internet can be used to make someone feel bad or upset:
- Sending hurtful messages about them.
- Sharing embarrassing photos or videos of them.
- Spreading nasty online gossip about them.
- Leaving them out online.
- Creating fake accounts in their name.
- Tricking them into believing you are someone else.
What does cyberbullying look like?
Now you know what cyberbullying is, you need to know what it can look like, and if there are any ways to notice it happening.
Cyberbullying can come in many forms including:
- Receiving mean or hurtful text messages. This could be from someone you know, or a stranger. Some people may even send these messages anonymously.
- Receiving nasty or threatening messages via social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat etc. This could be from individuals or it can be from groups of people.
- People actively isolating you from group chats, or spreading rumours about you in online chats.
- People circulating photos of you that may be embarrassing or that you might not want people to see.
- People spreading rumours about you online via social media.
- People setting up fake profiles and pretending to be you, and posting online pretending to be you.
Reference: “Cyberbullying (for Parents) – Nemours Kidshealth.” Edited by Elana Pearl Ben-Joseph, KidsHealth, The Nemours Foundation, Aug. 2022, https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/cyberbullying.html.
○What is cyberbullying?
○What are the impacts of cyberbullying?
○Are there cyberbullying roles?
○What do you do if you are being bullied?
○What do you do if you see bullying?
○How can you be an upstander?
Activity 1:Solve the crossword about cyberbullying
Activity 2:
Class Exercise
Read each scenario below. For each scenario, discuss with a classmate how well you think the person in each story below handled cyberbullying and how you might have handled it differently.
Scenario 1:
Sami began receiving rude emails from an email address she did not recognize. The emails ridiculed her hairstyle and the clothes she wore to school, so she assumed that the emails were from someone she knew. Sami decided to delete the emails and not tell her parents because she did not want to lose internet privileges.
Did Sami handle the incident well? If not, how could she have handled the situation differently?
Sami did not handle this situation as well as she could have. Sami did do the right thing by not responding to the emails, however, she should have saved the emails as proof of the incident. Also, Sami should have immediately told her parents or another trusted adult.
Scenario 2:
David received a friend request from Charlie. He had met Charlie once or twice but did not know him very well. To add to his growing number of friends, David accepted the friend request. Soon after, Charlie started posting strange photographs on David’s timeline. David quickly consulted his parents who advised him to send Charlie a private message asking him to stop. When Charlie continued to post these photos on David’s timeline, David “unfriended” Charlie on Facebook and blocked Charlie from seeing his Facebook account. He then reported the photographs Charlie had posted to Facebook.
Did Charlie handle the incident well? If not, how could he have handled the situation differently?
Charlie handled the incident well. He saved the emails, told a trusted adult, and also reported the photographs to Facebook administration.
Reflection
- Have you ever witnessed an instance of cyberbullying? What happened?
- What are some steps the victim could have taken in a cyberbullying situation?
- What are some steps that bystanders could have taken in a cyberbullying situation?
