Blog

An interesting controversy has emerged in the last couple of weeks over the word “meep.”  What does meep even mean?  Frankly, it doesn’t really matter.  In fact there are numerous and varied definitions of, and uses for, the word meep.  The most frequent use among adolescents, it seems, is to replace an inappropriate word with meep, as in “What the meep!?!”

So the recent controversy emerged when students at Danvers High School in Massachusetts threatened to disrupt the school environment by muttering, yelling, and collectively spewing the word meep during class time.  Danvers Principal Thomas Murray was tipped off about the planned disruption and preemptively threatened to suspend students who spoke the word or showed up to school with the word printed on clothing.  This, of course, incited folks from around the country to contact Mr. Murray to express their dissatisfaction with this seemingly ludicrous policy.  To be sure, the courts have ruled that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”  That said, school officials do have the right to restrict speech and/or discipline students for speech or behavior that results in (or has a high likelihood of resulting in) a substantial and material disruption of the learning environment.  In this case, I think it is clear that the students involved were in fact planning a substantial disruption.  So, it doesn’t matter that the speech involved wasn’t really even a real word.

When I was in middle school, my classmates and I started humming in English class.  The teacher was getting pretty upset by this and was walking around the classroom trying to identify the offending party.  When he went to one side of the classroom, students in the other side would start humming.  When he moved to the other side, the other students stepped up and continued the humming.  Clearly, the act of humming is not obscene or otherwise generally subject to discipline in any environment outside of the school.  But at school, if it causes or threatens to cause a substantial disruption, it can (and should be) stopped.  In our case, the teacher refused to administer our planned quiz until the humming stopped.  It didn’t, so we all failed the quiz.  To this day I have a hard time identifying prepositions!

This is an important case because as much as I agree with everyone that restricting the use of a nonsensical word is in itself nonsensical, it is necessary that school administrators have the ability to maintain an appropriate, civil, and safe learning environment at school.  Educators need the support of parents and other community members when they take actions to ensure an appropriate school climate.  This is especially true since many forms of relational aggression, including cyberbullying, are often more subtle and therefore may not be automatically identifiable as something warranting intervention.   At the same time, they also need to be held accountable when their policies or practices cross the line of being overly restrictive.  In the case of meep, from what I have seen, I think they were being reasonable in their efforts to prevent a disruption from occurring.  What do you think?  Is Principal Murray going too far with this?

I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to present alongside Tina Meier last week at a cyberbullying event in Detroit sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League.  I have spoken to Tina on the phone several times in the past, but this was the first time that I was able to meet her in person.  By now just about everyone is familiar with the nightmare that Tina has been forced to live with over the past few years after the untimely death of her teenaged daughter Megan.  It is a tragic story no matter how you read it.

I am happy to see Tina taking this horrible situation and turning it into a movement to educate others about the harmful effects of online aggression left unchecked.  At the event I expected Tina to simply recount her story, but she in fact went way beyond that.  In the relatively short time since being thrust into this area, she has come to understand quite a bit about the online activities of adolescents and did a commendable job moving beyond her unique story to educate the audience about the varied issues involved.  Her presentation was a very good compliment to mine and I was encouraged to see that we were on the same page regarding a variety of issues.

Sometimes as researchers I think there is a risk that we can become too detached from that which we are studying.  A lot of times we are simply working with numbers—nameless, faceless statistics.  We need to be constantly reminded that behind every cyberbullying victim or offender or parent or teacher there is a story that needs to be told.  Thankfully, Sameer and I speak to teens, parents, educators, and others involved in dealing with cyberbullying on a regular basis so it is difficult to become callous to the issues.  Talking with Tina last week reaffirmed my commitment to continuing to work toward better understanding the causes and consequences of cyberbullying so that efforts can be undertaken to prevent these negative behaviors from taking a toll on our youth.

One major outcome that we have seen in recent years has been the increase in suicides related to an experience with bullying. As a point of reference, in 2004, suicide was the third-leading cause of deaths among those between the ages of 10 and 24. Even though suicide rates have decreased 28.5 percent between 1990 and 2004 among this age group, upward trends were identified in the 10- to 19-year-old age group in 2003-2004 (the most recent data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Though research involving traditional bullying and suicide is plentiful, empirical research involving cyberbullying and suicide is sparse.

We just got word that a research paper we submitted to the journal Archives of Suicide Research has just been accepted for publication. Its general focus is the phenomenon of cyberbullicide, which we define as “suicide indirectly or directly influenced by experiences with online aggression” (Hinduja & Patchin, 2009). We’ll be posting a new fact sheet summarizing the research soon, but it details the empirical link we have uncovered between suicidal thoughts/actions and online victimization.

In our quantitative study, we found that youth who experienced traditional bullying or cyberbullying, as either an offender or a victim, scored higher on a well-validated suicidal ideation scale than those who had not experienced those two forms of peer aggression. Moreover, bullying and cyberbullying victimization was a stronger predictor of suicidal thoughts and behaviors than bullying and cyberbullying offending.

We also found that traditional bullying victims were 1.7 times more likely and traditional bullying offenders were 2.1 times more likely to have attempted suicide than those who were not traditional victims or offenders. Similarly, cyberbullying victims were 1.9 times more likely and cyberbullying offenders were 1.5 times more likely to have attempted suicide than those who were not cyberbullying victims or offenders.

My next post will offer some policy and programming suggestions to address this problem. Even though cyberbullicide occurs quite rarely, it still merits purposed and informed prevention and response efforts.

I really liked this article on “Cyber-Mentors”, a relatively new program from BeatBullying (based in the UK) that is gaining traction. Justin and I believe strongly in the power of older students and youth to provide guidance and advice to younger students as it relates to peer conflict (especially the online variant). Many of the mentors who participate in this program have experienced or witnessed cyberbullying, and are therefore in a unique position to offer counsel as they are personally and emotionally invested in helping the target of harassment in cyberspace. BeatBullying is working to become a 24/7 resource, and provide help to American youth as well; they currently work with hundreds of kids a week in a direct, physical capacity and thousands in a virtual capacity. They have recently elected Professor Tanya Byron to be their president.  This is really encouraging to me because she believes in the importance of rigorous research as the foundation of any program.

This article discusses two bills currently being considered on the American legislative landscape: Representative Linda Sanchez’s (D-CA) “Megan Meier Cyber Bullying Prevention Act” (H.R. 1966) and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s (D-FL) “Adolescent Web Awareness Requires Education Act” (H.R. 3630).

Justin and I are personally a big fan of Schultz’s AWARE Act, because education is the most vital and integral component of our nation’s comprehensive plan to address cyberbullying. School professionals, parents, and children should be taught useful, specific strategies to deal with peer conflict online, be armed with the tools to overcome such harassment, and be provided with numerous, readily available outlets and resources to assist them.  I applaud the initiative to educate.  With this said, we simply hope that such efforts are implemented with wisdom informed by empirical research on the topic.

Over the years, numerous educational programs have been implemented nationwide to combat problematic youth behaviors in society.  For instance, the DARE program has, historically speaking, been a mainstay anti-drug initiative for decades, even though the reviews are mixed on its efficacy.  To note, the program has undergone a recent major revision, and is currently being evaluated.  Underage drinking has also been a huge issue, addressed through graphic slideshows of wreck victims or haunting stories from those who have lost loved ones – and it is questionable whether this has made a difference at all since youth are so desensitized to car accidents, injury, and death.  Justin and I just want to make sure that the grants doled out through the AWARE Act actually accomplish their intent – because we have just seen too much wastage and futility in recent years with other educational efforts intended to address social problems among adolescents.  Comprehensive evaluations of program efforts (both process and outcome) must be a condition of funding so that we will know exactly what was done and the effect that it had.

With increased transparency, oversight, and accountability promised by our new President, I want to believe for the best.  I want to believe that we’ll actually do something right this time, and truly stem the tide of the problem at hand.  To accomplish this, we must actively check, measure, analyze, refine, and assess the utility of educational programming implemented to combat cyberbullying.  We hope to lend a hand towards this end, and will keep you updated.