Why cybersafety tips don’t work for cyberbullying

"Keep the evidence". In a litigious society we want evidence - proof. What this does is tell the person who is being cyberbullied, we don’t believe you, so prove it. I know people think they are “proving” the bully is bullying but what does it also do to the victim? If someone says something nasty to you, you remember how you feel but you usually can’t remember the exact words. When however, you are keeping all the texts, emails, online conversations what do you do? You re-read them. That’s the power of the written word. Is this really what we want?

The last tips are virtually the same: "Tell someone and report it."

However, we know from research that most victims of bullying do not tell someone about it, or if they do it is their friends. Why don’t they? Because they are embarrassed and humiliated by the bullying but mostly because they fear retaliation from the bully when adults are involved.

As adults we are often not sensitive enough when children do tell us about bullying. Most adults react by taking the situation into their own hands, taking power away from the already disempowered victim. To be fair, the adults think they are helping. But if an angry parent goes to the bully’s parents and complains, often things do not improve. If a teacher quizzes the victim, investigates the situation, decides the bully needs punishing, suspends them for two days from school and nothing else, there is likely to be retaliation against the victim, even if it is in more subtle ways.

The added complication with cyberbullying is that the children fear that the technology will be taken from them: that mum or dad will not let them have their mobile phone or they will not be able to use MSN. They think that adults will punish them for having been the victim.

Reporting by the child victim is unlikely because in Australia we have a culture of “don’t dob”. Unfortunately, we don’t teach children from an early age the difference between “dobbing” where you tell an adult another child is doing something wrong to get them into trouble, and “reporting” where you tell an adult when there is harm to yourself or others.

Cyberbullying is a complex problem which will not be solved by easy tips, however much we might want that. We need programs which have been thoroughly evaluated and which work. We need adults who are sensitive to children and who model good relationships, and do not use their power over others.