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A colleague of mine recently posed the following questions after listening to my recent interview on Wisconsin Public Radio:

Q:  If a student were bullying someone & claimed they had the right of freedom of speech to say whatever they want, how would you respond?

Q:  If a public official felt they were being bullied & threatened by constituents who claimed right of freedom of speech to say what they wanted, what would you say?

I thought others might be interested in my perspective, so I post my response here. Freedom of speech is an important issue and it is vital that we protect that freedom.  We have the right to say a lot of things in the United States.  But we don’t have the right to threaten, harass, intimidate, or otherwise mistreat someone.  Moreover, even though the Supreme Court famously said that students ‘do not shed their free speech rights at the schoolhouse gate’ (Tinker v. Des Moines, 1969), they also said that the rules are different at schools for educators who have a responsibility to maintain an appropriate and safe learning environment at school (see, for example, Bethel School Dist. v. Fraser, 1986).  So it is easier to restrict student speech at school than student speech away from school.  Of course this creates many problems from a cyberbullying standpoint to the extent that much cyberbullying occurs away from school, but clearly could significantly affect the school.  There are many legal questions that remain unanswered or have been answered differently depending on various lower court rulings.

As you probably know, for many purposes, teachers are considered public officials.  But the key to your second question is the nature of the speech.  Again, Americans have the right to criticize public officials (including students criticizing teachers).  They simply must do so in a responsible and respectful manner.  From a school perspective, if a student criticizes a teacher in a manner that results in a material and substantial disruption at school, then the school has the authority to formally discipline (they always have the right to informally discipline—calling parents, meeting with principal, etc.).  So a student is free to post on his Facebook page that ‘Mr. Smith is a bad teacher.’  But if he does so in a way that is disruptive at school, discipline could result.  Of course irrespective of the ability of the school to intervene, the target of the criticism could sue the bully civilly for harassment or intentional infliction of emotional distress or libel or something else if he chooses.  It is unclear how a judge would respond to this – I imagine it could vary widely depending on a lot of circumstances.

It is not completely clear how these broad principles would apply to a student criticizing (bullying?) another student.  It’s even muddier in the context of cyberbullying.  The same disruption standard would generally apply—at least for a school to discipline the bully, but I’m not aware of any case law that has addressed this question specifically.

So the bottom line is schools are different and treated as such by the law.  That doesn’t mean that everything is cut and dried, though.  What do you think?  Should educators be able to discipline students for their harassing speech at school?  What about away from school?

Several high profile incidents have put cyberbullying at the top of the headlines in recent months.  When Sameer and I first started studying this problem over eight years ago, it was rare to see a cyberbullying story in the media, now they are everywhere.

Larry Magid, a technology journalist who contributes to a number of publications, both online and off, commented on cnet yesterday about the potential development of a “cyberbullying panic.”  We really appreciate his perspective on issues relating to teens and technology and especially the fact that he always supports his viewpoints and arguments with research.

He is right that the public can sometimes view a particular problem as epidemic in nature simply from one or two high profile incidents (for example, the school shootings of the late 1990s, or more recently the panic over online sexual predators).  And many in the media often fan the flames.  I basically agree with his thoughts on this and think he is right on in terms of encouraging teens (and adults) to acknowledge that most kids are not engaging in negative or risky or irresponsible behaviors online.  Research finds that about 20% of kids have been cyberbullied, or admit to cyberbullying others, at some point in their lifetime (this number varies considerably depending on how one measures cyberbullying).  Of course this means that 80% of kids are NOT involved in cyberbullying as an aggressor or target.

Many people ask me if the bullying problem is getting worse with technology.  I simply tell them that technology has allowed us to observe the bullying problem more clearly.  Kids have always been bullying each other.  But technology has brought it to the forefront because we can see exactly what is being done and said.  Historically, maybe, much of these bullying experiences would never come to the attention of adults – technology has made the problem more visible, for better *and* worse.  This visibility likely contributes to the overall harm caused, but also allows parents, school administers, and others to see it more precisely (and most are shocked, even though they too were once adolescents).  I also think that the media attention surrounding these and other high profile incidents over the last year or two (perhaps even the Megan Meier case) has resulted in more students coming forward about their bullying/cyberbullying experiences.  Our research over the last five years or so shows that more teens are now telling adults about their experiences with cyberbullying.  Now we just need to teach adults how to effectively deal with the problem once they are made aware.

We need to remember that most teens are doing great things online and are largely being responsible (our MySpace research shows this clearly).  The high profile examples certainly grab the headlines but represent the exception rather than the rule.  Of course, as Larry points out, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the problem.  It is hard to see a clear path to prevention and response in the midst of a panic.  Good solid research can help us to distill the fact from the fiction, and therefore should be the foundation of any policy and practice.  That said, the rare tragedy is often necessary to remind us of why it is so important to keep moving forward with respect to these issues.

Sameer and I are just putting the finishing touches on a paper that examines the social networking behaviors of adolescents who are on MySpace.  For the past five years, we have annually taken random samples of MySpace profiles and analyzed them for content to ascertain any changes in adolescent participation and information sharing on the site.  We have published two papers reporting results from this research, and are poised to submit another to an academic outlet in the next week or so.

Because it takes SOOO long for academic research to make it into print, we have decided to post some preliminary results here.  This most recent paper compares a random sample of over 9200 profiles reviewed in 2006 with a random sample of around the same number reviewed in late 2009 – three years of dramatic changes in the landscape of online social networking.  Most of what this research has uncovered is not altogether surprising; it basically supports what most who follow adolescent use of these interactive platforms already know.

First and foremost, teens (and many others) are simply abandoning MySpace.   In 2006, 6.4% of the profiles sampled had been abandoned or deleted.  In 2009, that number was 35.5%.  In 2006, over 40% of the profiles were ‘active’ – meaning accessed within the previous 7 days.  In 2009, that number dropped to about 18%.  Finally, about 60% of the teen profiles sampled had not been logged onto in over a year.  In our opinion, this trend is unfortunate because MySpace has been an industry leader in promoting safety and responsibility on its site—contrary to the opinion of many parents and most state attorneys general.

When looking at adolescent participation on MySpace in more detail, the initial findings are telling.  Significantly more teens now set their profile to private (39% in 2006; 82% in 2009).  Briefly, significantly fewer teens now have public profiles which: 1) reveal pictures of friends in their swimsuit or underwear; 2) contain swear words; 3) include evidence of participation in adult-oriented behaviors such as tobacco, alcohol, or marijuana use; or, 4) report information about which school they attend.  In general, the results suggest that teens are being increasingly more selective and discrete about what they share and with whom they share it (at least on MySpace).

If you would like more information about this research, feel free to drop us a line and we would be happy to answer any questions you have.  Stay tuned to this blog as we will post the final paper when it is ready for distribution.  The earlier papers from this study, which appear in the Journal of Adolescence and the most recent issue of New Media and Society, are available.  If you have any trouble finding them, just email us and we can send a copy your way.

I recently participated in a joint podcast organized by Sage Publications with fellow social scientists Robert Agnew, Carter Hay, and Paul Mazerolle to chat about the relationship between the sociological concept of strain, traditional bullying, and cyberbullying.

According to Agnew’s General Strain Theory, strain has three sources: (1) the failure to achieve positively-valued goals; (2) the loss of positive-valued stimuli; and (3) the presentation of negative stimuli.  He argues that experiencing strain first produces negative emotions such as anger and frustration, and that crime (or, in terms of what we are studying in this research – traditional bullying and cyberbullying) are adaptations or coping mechanisms that strained individuals may use in response to those negative emotions.

The podcast is worth a listen if you’re interested in learning more about empirical research in this area.  Near the end of the podcast, I briefly discuss a recent manuscript co-written with Justin that is forthcoming in the academic journal Youth and Society (please email us if you would like a copy).  That piece found that middle schoolers who reported experiencing strain were significantly more likely to have engaged in bullying and cyberbullying, that bullying seemed to be related to feelings of negative emotions, and that anger and frustration did not appear to mediate the relationship between strain and either traditional bullying or cyberbullying (which is contrary to Agnew’s Theory).  If you have any questions or thoughts about this, let me know.

Routledge (Taylor and Francis) is making some of their copyrighted journal articles available at no cost through June, and our research piece entitled “Cyberbullying: An Exploratory Analysis of Factors Related to Offending and Victimization,” published in Deviant Behavior, is one of those and is available here.  To date, it is one of the most downloaded articles from that journal.

Here is the abstract:

Victimization on the Internet through what has been termed cyberbullying has attracted increased attention from scholars and practitioners.  Defined as “willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text,” this negative experience not only undermines a youth’s freedom to use and explore valuable online resources, but also can result in severe functional and physical ramifications.  Research involving the specific phenomenon – as well as Internet harassment in general – is still in its infancy, and the current work seeks to serve as a foundational piece in understanding its substance and salience.  Online survey data from 1,378 adolescent Internet-users are analyzed for the purposes of identifying characteristics of typical cyberbullying victims and offenders.  While gender and race did not significantly differentiate respondent victimization or offending, computer proficiency and time spent online were positively related to both cyberbullying victimization and offending.  Additionally, cyberbullying experiences were also linked to respondents who reported school problems (including traditional bullying), assaultive behavior, and substance use.  Implications for addressing this novel form of youthful deviance are discussed.