This episode was produced by UIC communication students Michelle Stefani ‘15, Dan Palermo ‘15, Mitch Esparza ‘15, Courtney Canino ’15, and Alexis Cooper ’15. In it, the team discusses how online and offline forms of cyberbullying differ (or not). Leslie Stern (North Shore Family Services) was the guest on this episode.
This podcast is a class exercise and it does not represent the views and opinions of the University of Illinois at Chicago or any of its departments.
Produced: Spring 2015
Transcript
[MUSIC: InfoNation theme music and intro] Welcome to InfoNation, UIC’s very own podcast created by students, for students. At InfoNation we discover how media, information and communication are created, governed, and used. Produced by upper level students in the department of Communication, InfoNation brings academic research to help make sense of our increasingly mediated society. We go to the library so you don’t have to!
[Courtney Canino] What is your definition of cyber bullying?
[ANONYMOUS1] Um, people using the Internet or social media to kind of pick on other people or make fun of them.
[ANONYMOUS2] Um, I’d say the act of people talking over social media and making fun of someone behind their back even though they don’t know them, to just try to hurt their feelings.
[ANONYMOUS3] Any online interaction that makes another person feel threatened or uncomfortable.
[CC] Have you ever been cyber-bullied before?
[ANONYMOUS1] No
[ANONYMOUS2] Um, I have not.
[ANONYMOUS3] Yes.
[CC] What happened?
[ANONYMOUS3] A boy told me I was fat and ugly.
[CC] Do you think that cyber bullying and traditional bullying bare the same consequences?
[ANONYMOUS4] I do.
[CC] Why?
[ANONYMOUS4] Um, I feel that we live in a generation where students are most likely talking or connecting with each other via the web, via digital, via social media so its just as impactful as if somebody disrespects them or bullies them via social media as it is in person.
[DAN PALERMO] From Chicago, Illinois this is Infonation. My name is Dan Palermo and I am one of your hosts for today’s show. Joining me today is my cohost, Mitch Esparza.
[MITCH ESPARZA] Hey Dan, how are you doing?
[DP] I’m doing well, and later we hear from one of our field reporters, Courtney Canino. We have a great show for you lined up today. We are going to be talking about cyber bullying; what it is and what effects it has on our youth. So Mitch, how is it going today?
[ME] I’m doing great. I’m excited to be here and talk about such an important topic.
[DP] We are certainly glad to have you on today. So tell me, what is your definition of cyber bullying?
[ME] Cyber bullying, I think, the best way to describe it as any form of online harassment, whether it’s over social media, you know any public forums. You know, anywhere where you aren’t in direct face-to-face contact with the victim that you’re bullying. Um, you know I believe that is the most basic form of cyber bullying.
[DP] Yeah I would agree and it’s such a pressing issue today, um, with all the online outlets, social media sites, and everybody has one and everybody is on it, and you know it’s such a, it’s not a new way of bullying but it is almost the “go-to” of bullying.
[ME] I feel like since social media is becoming such a huge hyped new form of communication, you know, I feel like it’s going to be growing and it’s always growing and this might not be a new topic, a topic that’s not always addressed in public. It’s kind of tabooed in a way, but I feel like it’s definitely a problem in America and it’s definitely a problem we need to start addressing.
[DP] And I think even more so with, you know, the younger generation, it’s one thing to be harassed online when you’re in college and you can kind of get away from it, but when you’re at a young age and all of your friends are online and you want to be a part of that, of that environment, but when you’re bullied on there sometimes these kids don’t know how to handle it.
[ME] Oh absolutely. I mean it’s the only place that you really have to go. I mean, if you’re coming home as a seventh grade student, you know you don’t always have the freedom to go out, go to a friend’s house, go to a social setting that allows you to be face-to-face with the group that you are communicating with, you’re going to be online and on these public forums, and you know I feel like people are a lot braver when they don’t have the repercussions of being face-to-face and saying something that they might not be punished for.
[DP] Absolutely. I think it’s really interesting that we have a special guest, Leslie Stein that is going to be joining us later on, and she is a social worker that kind of helps young people deal with this type of cyber bullying, and she kind of helps them through it and deal with it, and I’m really interested in hearing what she has to say about this.
[ME] Oh absolutely. I know I talked to Courtney, she had done this interview a few days ago and it sounded like she had a really interesting backstory, really knew her stuff on cyber bullying, so I’m really excited to bring this to light, to have our audience understand both us as our hosts and as our audience to come to a better enlightenment of what exactly is so pressing about this cyber bullying issue.
[ME] With us in the studio today we have our field reporter, Courtney Canino. Hey Courtney, how are you doing?
[CC] I’m doing good.
[ME] Good, good. Could you tell us a little about Leslie, and about the interview you conducted with her?
[CC] Sure. I interviewed Leslie Stein, and she is a licensed social worker, and she is currently working at North Shore Family Services where on a daily basis she sees kids and teens who are dealing with cyber bullying.
[ME] Oh, wow she sounds like the perfect authority on cyber bullying. Let’s hear a clip on her now:
[LESLIE STEIN] We are a counseling practice. There are three female therapists that work there, and we all have a background on school social work, and our goal there is to help kids, teens and families to feel successful and able to manage whatever challenges come their way whether that’s at home or at school or in another setting. So, we work with kids, teens and families to work on social skills, their ability to manage strong emotions, healthy coping skills, executive functioning skills, as well as a bunch of other skills that are important to them being successful at home and at school.
[ME] After hearing all of our interviews from the street and from what the amateurs here in the studio have to say about our definitions of cyber bullying, let’s take a look at what a professional’s definition is of cyber bullying.
[LS] The definition of cyber bullying would be any type of communication that takes place over or through a source of technology, whether that’s a cell phone or a computer or other types of technology that exists that I don’t know about because I am not very extremely text-savvy, and that communication would be communication to put down or insult or intimidate another human being.
[ME] Leslie’s definition is pretty spot on to the research that we have in front of us. According to a study done by Bill Besley in 2004, he defines cyber bullying as the use of information and communication technologies such as e-mails, cell phone and pager text messages, instant messaging, defamatory personal Web sites, and defamatory online personal polling Web sites, to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others.
[CC] So, with all of the new social media platforms and social media sites, do you think that cyber bullying is on the rise?
[ME] Well, I mean I believe it has to be, right? I do everything from my pocket nowadays. I’ve got my cell phone that has my word documents, all my contacts, my text messages, my social media’s in my pocket, I can’t image that kids who are getting cell phones in elementary school these days, it is ridiculous. I can’t imagine that the cyber bullying can’t be increasing if they have more accessibility to the devices in which they can be bullied on. Let’s go back to our interview and see what Leslie’s opinion is on this topic.
[LS] Absolutely. I think as technology grows and becomes more and more a part of our daily life, communication that may have been face-to face before now often takes place through the use of technology and with that comes increased negative interactions, not only is their more use of technology but kids have access to technology at a really young age, whether that’s having a cell phone at a young age or having computer access at a young age, so more people are using technology. Technology is being used at a younger age. Technology is being used with greater frequency and some of, problems, age-old problems that have existed between kids and teens are not only happening in person but through the use of technology, and technology kind of allows an easy way out in terms of being able to say things you might not have the courage to say face-to-face, but that you can say or communicate via technology because you are not held as much accountable as you would be if you were face-to-face with that person.
[CC] I think that’s probably one of the main components of cyber bullying, is the fact that bullies are able to hide behind the screen so it’s almost as though they are not getting any consequences to their actions, and just like everyone’s braver behind a screen because you don’t have to put the effort of showing yourself.
[ME] Absolutely. It’s becoming such a large, dominant part of our youth culture. According to another study I have in front of me by Hinduja and Patchin, some studies have found that one-fourth to one-third or more of our youth have cyber bullied others. In addition to that, another study found that forty-seven percent of youth reported witnessing cyber bullying as bystanders. So talk about cowardly, at this point we have more bystanders, we have more bullies, and we have more youth being bullied.
[LS] It also enables people to gang up on one another; it lends itself to miscommunication, as I’m sure a lot of people have experience through if you receive a text you don’t know the tone of voice, you don’t know the nature of that comment necessarily so it provides an easy arena for bullying behaviors as well as increased likelihood of miscommunication when you don’t hear the persons voice or see their face in terms of their body language or facial expression.
[CC] Do you think then because you just explained the differences between lets say traditional bullying which is more in person compared to cyber bullying. Do you think one is more detrimental than the other?
[LS] I think both can be equally as harmful. Both can be really harmful to ones social emotional well being weather that’s in person or kind of behind your back. It can cause kids to not want to go to school it can cause you know kids or teens to not want to leave their home or go to certain social settings and I think both can be extremely painful and interfere with development in a lot of ways as you know for kids and teens their main job at that point in their life is to go to school, and if this kind of negative interaction is taking place at school its going to cause a huge barrier to their learning. You know as an adult if we were being picked on in the work place we could probably imagine that we wouldn’t want to go to work as much. We might want to avoid this person, but kids if someone in your class is bullying you don’t have the option to avoid them you know your expect to go to school everyday and perform at your best and if your worried about being called a bad name or some sort of physical aggression it’s of course going to interfere with your ability to engage in learning.
[ME] So it would appear just as with normal physical bullying that cyber bullying leads to a lot of emotional and psychological trauma. Research has even shown that the greater the severity of the bullying the greater the likelihood that the adolescent being bullied will experience mental health and social problems.
[CC] And that’s a big problem because I feel like people are not taking cyber bullying as seriously as they would take traditional bullying. Yet as we can see these victims are still suffering the same consequences with not showing up to school or having mental health issues later in life.
[LS] As kids and as teens I think one of the major developmental milestones is feeling a sense of acceptance as well as a sense of self worth and if your being told by your peers your not good enough, or you don’t look a certain way or your disliked that can really having a lasting impact. If you think about if from birth your parents told you everyday you are not good enough, people don’t like you, you could probably imagine that you would start to believe it and feel the same way. Fortunately most kids probably grow up with their parents telling them everyday you know I love you, I’m proud of you, good job and so if someone experiences bullying over you know years, it can have an extremely negative long term affect. On their growth as a person it could interfere with their ability to finish school. If you’re someone that experiences really severe bullying in high school you know that could really have an impact on your attendance, your grades, and thus graduating thus impacting what you achieve in the future. If the bullying occurs at school it interferes with the relationship that you form with school, then school becomes a place that you don’t like that feels unsafe versus a place that you feel safe and that you feel like is a place you can really depend on and learn from in order to achieve goals in your future.
[ME] So that experience alone sounds like it speaks volumes to the fact that cyber bullying is just as detrimental to the health of our youth as traditional bullying.
[CC] Yeah and we have seen all the research and spoken to a professional and its very clear that cyber bullying has the same affects on teens and kids as does traditional bullying. It’s something that needs to be taken seriously.
[ME] When you spoke with Leslie did you have a moment to talk about any actual experiences she had with cyber bullying victims?
[CC] Yeah in fact we did and lucky for us she did have a lot of experience.
[LS] I most often encounter cyber bullying with teenage girls. Starting you know in middle school and really up through high school. Technology has become a really one of the most frequent ways of communicate for teens, pre teens and into teenage years. Students are communicating every day via text and posting on various sites, and as teens girls one of the major barriers or obstacles to overcome is a sense of self, and self confidence, and self worth and often young women explore that idea in comparing themselves to others and I think this is where a lot of the cyber bullying comes in that a lot of teenage girls put down other girls as a way to seek attention from others, or feel like they fit in with others, or as a way to kind of feel good about themselves rather than addressing some of the insecurities that they might experience as they continue to develop in a more affective way. They sometimes you know other teen girls are kind of targeted and are put down for whatever reason. And so you know we get kids coming to school or to North Shore family services upset all the time saying “I saw this person post this” and “I thought they were my friends and now I clearly feel like they’re not” or “I know that we weren’t friends but I don’t understand why they felt the need to put me down in this way or embarrass me in this way”.
[ME] Wow what an informative interview that we had form Leslie. We just wanted to take the time again to thank Leslie and North Shore Family Services for spending some time with us and really getting to the bottom of what cyber bullying is and how it affects our youth.
[CC] She so eloquently put how cyber bullying is a big problem today with kids and teens and how it’s going to continue to grow unless some action is taken.
[ME] Yep and we also came to the conclusion there’s definitely no debate that cyber bullying is detrimental. It may even be as detrimental as traditional bullying.
[CC] Yeah we saw it from the reports, we saw it from Leslie, that these kids and these teens are still going through the same psychological trauma that they would be going through traditional bullying the only difference is that its from a screen instead of from someone’s mouth.
[ME] Absolutely and that affects you know leads troubles in school and could even lead to troubles later in life as far as self-confidence and self-development goes.
[CC] So overall it’s clear that cyber bullying has the same affect on a person as traditional bullying does.
[ME] If you or someone you know is a victim of cyber bullying please visit stopbullying.gov where you can find tools on how to deal with cyber bullying.
[ME] Unfortunately, that is all the time we have this evening.
[CC] We would like to thank everyone we interviewed and special thank you to Leslie Stein for letting us pick her brain about cyber bullying. From all of us here at InfoNation thank you and be sure to tune in next time.
[PODCAST OUTRO AND THEME MUSIC] Thanks for listening to InfoNation! Coming to you from the University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Communication. Our theme music was created by Shawn Rizvi, a 2015 graduate. We hope we picked your interest and you learned something new today. Please feel free to engage by rating, commenting or sharing our episodes.
Additional readings
DePaolis, K., & Williford, A. (2014). The nature and prevalence of cyber victimization among elementary school children. Child & Youth Care Forum