- Good evening.
Hi, nice to see everybody here tonight.
And I think we have a really exciting,
stimulating presentation ahead of us.
Before I go any further, I'm Josh Miller.
I'm the cting Dean for the School for Social Work.
I have one announcement I was asked to make by Student Org,
which is that elections are taking place this week.
And they end,
the balloting ends on Friday.
So people are encouraged to vote,
if you have not yet done so.
So, I want to just say a few things about the significance
of this particular Monday Night Lecture,
before I introduce our speaker.
This is the Lydia Rapoport lecture and what it means is that
our guest tonight is not just here for one lecture,
but she will be with us all week.
And will be part of a number of different presentations
and classes and gatherings.
It's particularly fitting that tonight
our lecturer is Faye Mishna,
because she is a graduate of our doctoral program.
And this marks the 50th anniversary of
the Smith College School for Social Work doctoral program.
And that's actually quite a milestone.
(audience applause) Yes, thank you.
The celebrations began yesterday,
when the person who was Dean of the School for Social Work,
Howard Parad, was here along with almost all
of the co-directors of the doctoral program,
many of its alumni, and many of our current PhD students.
And there was a really interesting presentation
by Jerry Shamus, who is professor emeritus at Smith College.
As well as a panel discussion
from some of our distinguished alumni.
So that's kicked off a week
of recognizing our doctoral program.
Just very briefly,
the Smith College PhD program was started 50 years ago
at a time when there were not clinical doctoral programs.
So it was really a unique venture.
It was met by a lot of skepticism
from some of the leaders within the profession.
Although, there were also some who supported it.
And it has carved out this unique niche ever since.
We have many graduates from this program.
And over half of them teach either full-time or part-time
at universities all over the country.
And in North America.
So, it's a special place in the field of social work.
It's really needed in this sea of R1 universities that focus
on how to turn people into really great researchers.
Including the University of Toronto,
where our speaker is from.
But there also needs to be something else,
and I think we are that something else.
And...
To have lasted for 50 years,
and to have been as strong and as influential as we are,
is really, I think, a statement about that.
So I'm looking forward to the next 50 years
for the doctoral program.
Actually, I don't think I'll be here.
But hopefully, many of you in the audience will be.
This is called the 'Lydia Rapoport Lecture'
because Lydia Rapoport was a eminent therapist,
and a graduate of our program,
who graduated in...
1944
She lived in between 1923 and 1971.
She had a very short, but a very impactful life.
And one of the things that I just wanted to mention
about her, is that she really stressed...
She was an expert on brief, short-term practice,
at time when that was something that was just emerging.
And even though she was very steeped
in the school's psycho-dynamic tradition,
she placed a great emphasis on prevention
rather than completely focusing on pathology.
And so, in that way, she was really a pioneer.
Obviously, I didn't know her.
But from what I've heard, she was a beloved person.
She really made her mark with whoever she met.
And so, this lecture and this Scholar and Resident's Week
is in her honor.
So now I'd like to move to talking a little bit about
Faye Mishna, who is the Dean
at the Univerity of Toronto School for Social Work.
And as I said earlier,
one of our more illustrious graduates from our PhD program.
And before I talk about about some of her academic work,
I have this from very reliable sources that,
in Toronto, Faye has a special order
at the local Starbucks.
They know her by name.
And also they know what temperature she likes her coffee.
So that's something to keep in mind,
if you're at any meetings with her this week.
Or if you accompany her downtown
to any of our coffee shops.
So anyway,
Faye, as I said, is the Dean at the University of Toronto.
And she's also the Professor of the Factor Inwentash Faculty
at the University of Toronto.
And also, cross-appointed in the School of Pshychiatry,
as well as the School for Social Work.
She holds the Margaret and Wallace McCain Family Chair
in Child and Family.
And she worked in children's mental health
for over 20 years prior to joining the faculty.
So Faye had a very strong and deep practice background
before she became an academic.
As well as graduating from Smith,
she is a graduate of the Canadian Institute
for Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.
And despite being the Dean of one of North America's
major research university schools of social work,
she maintains a small private practice
in psychotherapy and consultation.
And I can just tell you,
in my brief stint as acting Dean,
I only marvel that she's able to do that.
She's conducted research on bullying,
on cyber-bullying, cyber-counseling,
and the impact of information and communication technology
in face to face counseling,
and interventions with vulnerable children and youth.
I don't know about you,
but this is something that I feel like
I am just beginning to start to grasp.
And I'm really excited about the fact
that Dr. Mishna is here tonight to talk to us about this.
She has many scholarly publications.
Some have focused on bullying, clinical practice,
social work education, and more recently,
on cyber technology and its use in counseling.
She's currently conducting a longitudinal study
on cyber-bullying amongst students
grades four, seven, and ten.
And is also collecting research on the implications
of cyber technology for social work practice.
She's the author of a book on bullying,
published by Oxford University Press in October,
I mean, excuse me, May of 2012.
Please join me in welcoming Dr. Faye Mishna.
(audience applause)
Thank you, can you hear me?
So first of all, it's an incredible honor to be here.
And I just want to say something about the Smith College
School for Social Work PhD program.
It is one of the best things that I ever did in my life.
I loved every moment of it.
And one of the things that, the University of Toronto
is a research intensive university,
but we really are focused on trying to integrate
research and practice, and practice and research.
And so, the people who graduate from this program,
from Smith College, are really valued.
And I think it's really important to remember that.
That what you have is unique,
it's not being taught everywhere else.
But there's a gap and we really need it.
So, just wanted to say that.
And speaking of Smith...
So when I came to start the doctoral program,
I was supervisor of an agency that worked with
kids who had learning disabilities
and social, emotional problems.
So of course, they were always referred
for a lot of psycho-social problems, including bullying.
But it was actually my dissertation,
so my research at Smith,
that helped me realize the importance of bullying.
And it's because of Smith
that I got into my program of research.
What happened was, we at this little agency,
we offered group therapy for the kids.
And that was very different,
because most places at the time
were offering social skills training.
Where they were teaching the kids how to learn skills.
But we were offering a more open-ended therapy.
Assuming that they did have the skills,
but they just had a lot of anxiety and issues.
So my research was Grounded Theory,
where I was interviewing them,
asking them about their experiences
of being in the group therapy.
I did not ask them one thing about bullying.
It was not on my mind.
And one of the things that came out in the research,
and it's one of the reasons I love research,
is that they talked a lot bit about how,
their words were, they said, one of the things they loved
about being in the group,
is they didn't have to worry
about the fact of being bullied.
They didn't have to worry about how they were talking
or how they were being.
And that was critical for them.
So for me, that really influenced my practice,
when I went back, after I finished.
We brought bullying front and center into the program.
Because we realized, into the services,
because I realized they were just as affected
by the bullying, and the lack of validation of it,
as they were affected by the learning disabilities.
And then I stayed at the agency for five years.
And then the University of Toronto was looking
for somebody who did research, but who was really clinical.
So I decided to apply.
And one of the things you have to do
is choose a program of research.
And my program of research became bullying.
So, I feel like it's just really been
the research and practice going back and forth.
And...
And then I started working on cyber-bullying.
And that's what I'm going to talk about today.
And I'm going to just give an overview
of cyber-bullying and the cyber world.
And then I'd like to present some, as Josh mentioned,
I'm doing a three year study right now.
And we're in the third year,
and we're just starting to look at some of the data.
And some of the interviews have very interesting findings,
that I think have huge implications
for social work practice.
For all practice, but for social work.
So I wanted to talk a little bit about that.
So it's 'What's App With Youth Online'.
And this...
Sorry.
Is that working?
So Laurel, I wanted to just talk briefly about Laurel.
When I had started doing my research on cyber-bullying,
that was when everybody knew about predators.
Nobody was interested in cyber-bullying.
And Laurel was referred to me at my practice.
She was 15.
Her parents were absolutely devastated,
because they had gotten a phone call from the principal
that a photo of her was being
passed around the school, digitally.
And she didn't have a top on.
And they were very freaked out about it.
And at that time, I did know about that
because of our study that we had done.
But nope, it was not on the radar.
People were not aware of that.
So, I'm going to come back to Laurel at the end.
But when I would talk about cyber-bullying then,
I often used,
I would obviously disguise it,
but I often used her as an example.
Saying, "This is an example of cyber-bullying."
And now when we go over it eight years later,
it's out there completely.
Which I think has its own issues that I'll talk about.
The question that people ask about cyber-bullying often is,
is it the same as bullying, traditional bulling,
or is it different?
And I think the answer is, we don't really know.
And people are really trying to sort out
the differences and similarities.
We do know there are similarities to bullying,
and we do know there are differences.
But we also know that cyber-bullying takes place
in the context of this new cyber world.
And we cannot,
I really feel that we cannot,
talk about or understand cyber-bullying
unless we put it in the context of the world.
Because it's a new world.
So the cyber world,
it's created a whole new social environment for youth.
Where there are unprecedented opportunities
for them to have interactions with people inside and outside
of their social world.
And that's never happened before.
And it's always advancing.
That's the other thing that's very critical.
It happens very quickly.
'The Cyber World', and more-so now,
because when I started doing the research
it was computers, but now it's mobiles,
is pervasive, it creeps into all aspects of our lives.
And it's just really permeated everything.
It's constantly changing, and it's rapidly advancing.
When I first started working in it, I went to a talk,
this was like about eight or nine years ago,
and it was a lawyer speaking about cyber safety.
But he talked about it being equivalent
to the Industrial Revolution.
That it's that revolutionary.
And I think we need to understand that.
So, teenagers and children have,
they are on so many on-line platforms.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
And every day there are new ones.
And they're accessing these kinds of platforms
more and more.
And more and more, they're doing it in a mobile way.
One way to think about it,
this is a generation of youth
that have never known a world without technology.
And when I first started talking about it,
I thought about it as DNA.
But then we realized that DNA is our old term.
It really is their OS.
It's really in their Operating System.
And just a bit about some statistics.
If you look at the numbers of the unique visitors
to Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat.
So Snapchat, it's 400 million 'snaps' a day.
This is absolutely pervasive.
And one thing that I keep coming back to is that,
when something happens, like a tragedy,
it's in the media, and we talk about it.
And then, a week later, it's gone.
But adults need to be aware that,
because it's gone from our radar screen,
but it's going on, they are living this.
So the cyber world, it can increase the likelihood
of negative interactions.
Which everybody's aware of.
For reasons that people know,
there are fewer social skills.
There's a record of the events, forever and ever.
And it's always available, that's one of the big things.
One of the kids in one of our studies on cyber-bullying
said, "It's non-stop bullying."
Because it can happen at school,
and then it can kind of follow you home.
But when people talk about cyber-bullying,
the often talk about the technology,
as if the technology is the issue.
We have to remember that cyber-bullying,
like regular bullying,
happens in the context of relationships.
So we need to think about it.
The technology facilitates that, for good and for bad,
but it really does happen in relationships.
And there are features of the technology
that adds additional complexities to the relationships.
And again, the younger you are,
although adults have trouble with it as well.
So, it lessens inhibitions, because it's just...
You press 'send'.
It's often and it's spontaneous.
And it happens all the time.
There's fewer social and contextual cues.
And that can decrease somebody's sensitivity or empathy.
Because if you're seeing somebody face to face,
and you're doing something hurtful to them,
you can see it in their body, in their face.
That might stop you.
You don't see it this way.
And kids talk about that, when they they describe that.
And there's the perception of anonymity.
And the reason I say it's a perception is,
there's really an assumption that it's anonymous,
but it's not.
People really, it happens in their friendship circles.
They might not know who's doing it right away,
but they do find out.
So, I don't need to tell you, what's clear
is that it can be a dangerous combination that
increases the likelihood of impulsive and hurtful actions.
Then, if we put that together with
the developmental characteristics of children and youth,
there's characteristics about them,
that they are still growing.
They still are dependent.
And as they become more independent,
they need to be inter-dependent.
They need guidance.
And then there's this internet world,
and more and more with mobile world,
that let's them have freedom and autonomy
in a way that they're not necessarily prepared for.
And there's been this kind of myth
that they're technologically adept.
That's not a myth, that's true.
But that doesn't mean they're technologically able
to deal with the technology.
And I can't stress enough,
the current generation has never experienced
a world without technology.
And the reason that's important is,
because adults often say, "Oh, it's not real.
They're not really talking.
It's not the same as face to face."
Somebody named Danah Boyd
has written a lot of stuff on that saying,
and I think it's really true,
"We have to remember, it is real to them."
As long as we think it's not, there is a situation.
At the University of Toronto, actually,
a professor and I were having a meeting with some students.
And she had just come out of a class with them.
It was PhD students.
And she said to them, you know,
"I used to come into the class to see you guys chatting.
I came in today, nobody was talking,
you were all on your iPhones."
And so one of them said,
"We were chatting, we were chatting on our iPhones."
And for them that's real.
So, as adults, we have to remember that.
So, I want to show an example of that.
If I can get it work.
(audience laughter)
OK, this is a 12 month old baby.
You can't hear her, but she's squealing with delight.
And she's...
She's looking, she's trying to turn the pages.
(audience laughter)
(giggles from audience)
So she's like a little scientist.
She checks out her finger.
Watch her check out her finger.
In the book, it's not working.
- [Voiceover] Wow, that's fantastic.
Then her leg, it's working.
(eruption of audience laughter)
And now she's starting to sound very frustrated,
making these frustrated noises.
And now she's squealing with delight again.
So, nobody can say that's not real.
"For my one year old daughter,
an magazine is an iPad that does not work,"
this woman said,
"It will remain so for her whole life.
Steve Jobs has coded a part of her OS."
So, that's the context we have to be aware of.
So, speaking of that, I just have a few statistics.
Just so we have some idea.
And some of these are like three years old,
so they're already old.
The Canadian youth, most of them use cyber technology daily.
There it says they use e-mail, although now,
e-mail's totally out for them.
Same as in the states.
Many of them, most of them, go on-line.
And if these are even a year old,
it means that it's much higher than that.
A lot of them use,
and that's really important too,
a lot of them use mobile internet.
So that's a game-changer, because it means
they have access to the internet on their mobiles.
So again, just to stress
that the context of the social media is,
that the dramatic revolutionary technological advances
have forever changed how we all interact.
It really has done that.
And children and youth are very sophisticated
users of technology, on the one hand.
Technologically, they're very sophisticated.
Because you can imagine, by the time she's three,
she's gonna be a little expert.
And one of the issues is,
youth acquire technological competence
much faster than their parents or teachers.
And people are,
you always hear adults talking about that.
And I know even at school,
if there's a young student around, they'll have the answer.
But that is one of the things that makes it risky.
Because the people who need the help
know more, technologically, than the people
who have to help them.
And it's also why the adults saying,
"I'm not interested,
it's not my generation, I can't learn about it,"
is really not an option.
Because if we don't learn about it, and understand it,
we can't really help them.
And kids know that, they know the adults don't know.
So they will not come to us.
And teenagers share a tremendous amount
of information on-line.
And with the huge proliferation of platforms,
they share more and more.
And it's important to remember that privacy norms
really vary by platform.
So for example, you hear a lot about Facebook.
There's a lot of privacy settings.
And yeah, a lot of teenagers use those.
But for example, with Twitter they don't.
So privacy is different with each platform.
And if there's 30 platforms, we can't say it's the same.
The other thing that we have to remember though is,
research shows they actually do seek help
and advice from friends and others about privacy norms.
So that's...
and privacy settings.
So that's really critical.
But the context of that is, the whole
question of privacy is changing.
So what does privacy mean?
I don't think anybody really has the answer anymore.
Because it has changed, privacy,
and the whole idea of boundaries.
And as I said, the technology
is increasingly mobile and diverse.
And most adults have not heard about a lot of them.
And they, youth, spend a great amount of time
just managing their different
on-line networks and reputations.
So, take a look.
Oops.
So there's one example of some of the many kinds of apps
and networking that youth will be involved in.
And this won't even be all of it.
The PhD student who sent me this said,
that's like roughly half of the amount that she has.
And really, it's just second nature.
And we need to be aware of that.
Because this is a lot of managing,
and it's all considered real.
The other important context
is that the cyber world has a tremendous number
of huge benefits for children and youth.
We need to remember that, especially when we hear negatives.
Because it's very easy when we hear
about tragedies or negative things, to say,
"You know what, it's just not good."
But there are tremendous benefits that are invaluable.
So, there's unprecedented opportunities
to have social support, identity development,
and learning that just wasn't available before.
Research has actually shown
that most on-line interactions are positive or neutral.
And that many of them, because it happens with youth
in their face to face world,
actually increases their intimacy and their relationships.
So it's a positive thing.
And then for...
Anybody who feels marginalized,
it allows them an opportunity to have a group
that they might not be able to have at school or at home.
So for example, LGBTQ, chronic illness,
somebody who has an invisible disability,
somebody who lives in a remote area.
And we cannot stress that enough.
Because we know that if you don't have somebody
you can connect with or feel like,
that that has huge detrimental effects
on somebody's development.
So the fact that they can go on-line and have that,
is absolutely invaluable.
Then the problem, the paradox.
Maybe not the problem, the dilemma is,
the place that provides the safety
also can be the place that provides risks.
So it just means it's complicated though.
Because we can't get rid of it,
because those benefits are incredibly valuable.
So of course, some of the risks that we do know about:
sexual solicitation, harmful material.
One...
Some research has actually shown
that it's not even a risk that kids are going to
be exposed to harmful material,
that's it's a fact.
That most of them have already been exposed to it.
And being exploited in relationships.
And one of the features about it is that it,
and other forms of abuse also can happen in this way,
but is that, it often happens when you're at home,
feeling safe, where you should be safe.
So that's one way that cyber-bullying
is different than traditional bullying.
With traditional bullying, kids know to expect it.
Not that it makes it easy, but that is one difference.
When cyber-bullying first became kind of known,
the big...
Often the message was, a few tips.
Basically, what parents should do
in terms of giving their kids tips,
and the fact that they should monitor them.
So, parents often struggle to monitor.
Now, one of the issues is that,
even with computers, it was hard to monitor.
But with mobile devices, it's almost impossible
to monitor in that kind of way.
That doesn't mean monitoring's not important.
Because actually, it can make a big difference.
But we did need to recognize
that it's a different kind of monitoring.
And the other thing, in terms of monitoring,
again, I don't know how many people here
would even know this,
but one one of the things I was introduced to
awhile ago, was that there is an app.
There are apps that actually can hide your material.
So a lot of kids can get that.
So for example, there's an app that looks like a calculator,
there's an app that looks like a news app.
And then when you open it, when somebody's not around,
it can keep everything.
It actually can keep as much memory as most smart phones.
So the reason that's important is that,
monitoring alone, there's always technological ways
to hide that.
And I guess a feature of the on-line world is that
youth, young people, are going to exercise autonomy
regardless of the regulating and monitoring.
And that rather than just having tips,
that means that adults really need to get involved
in preparing youth to interact responsibly.
They talked about digital responsibility
and digital citizenship, which is a new kind of issue,
because we didn't have it before.
And also, we need to be more open about it.
And let there be room for mistakes.
When, in some of the research that I've done in the past,
when were interviewing kids in grade four and five,
and they would be doing something that was risky,
and we'd ask them.
At that point, actually, we thought
they just didn't understand it was risky.
What became very clear is
they knew very well it was risky.
Because their parents had followed the rules.
Their parents had told them,
"Don't do this, don't do that."
So the kids would say, "I can't tell my parents,
'cause they'll hate me.
They told me not to do this, they'll feel I'm disgusting."
So for me, it's sort of,
and I think for a lot of people in the area,
it's sort of like drinking and driving.
When my generation, the message was,
"Don't drink and drive."
But that was the end of the story.
So if somebody drank and they drove,
it could be tragic.
But then public service announcements came out,
and the message became,
"Don't drink and drive."
That's still the message, but that if you do drink,
phone your parents.
And the message to the parents became,
"Pick up your kids.
Deal with safety first, then deal with the others."
We haven't really done that
with the internet and the mobiles.
And we really need to.
Because with our kids,
and research, again, shows some kids are looking,
you know, they end up looking for it deliberately.
Other times, they just sort of run into trouble,
not meaning to, and they don't know how to get out of it.
And so they need to get the message
that they need to be able to come to you with problems.
To come to us.
Now parents and teachers need help,
and that's one of the places
that I think social workers really come in.
To not just be reactive.
And often people say,
"Well, then that means I'm condoning it."
that doesn't mean we're condoning it.
It just just means that we're saying,
"We want to help you problem-solve."
And given that this is the world,
this is something that they really need to learn.
So in terms of the definition,
there really isn't a universal definition.
And people are still struggling with that.
But generally, it's considered to be
the use of any information communication technology
to deliberately harm somebody.
The criteria are that the intent is to harm,
and that there's a power imbalance.
So even with traditional bullying,
that could be hard sometimes to determine.
With cyber-bullying, it can be very difficult.
And it's complex.
So the questions we have to ask,
When I go back to when I said before,
that we didn't think a lot about cyber-bullying.
And people were more aware of cyber-stalking,
of adults being predators to kids.
Now, often, everything gets lumped into cyber-bullying,
when it's not.
So we need to, this is
again, this is why I think social workers
really need to be involved.
Because that's the other thing I wanted to mention.
That in bullying and cyber-bullying,
most of the people working in it are people in education
and psychology, very few social workers.
And I do think it's area that really needs social work,
because it talks about the person
and all the interactions at all levels of their world.
So we need to ask, "Who's involved?
And how are they related?"
So that's very important.
Because often they're friends.
And that's one of the big surprises the research is showing.
Because if it's a friend, you react very differently.
It's very hard to go tell about your friend.
Especially if you value their friendship,
or if you want to be accepted.
We need to know whether adults are involved.
There's examples in the states too,
but in Canada, Amanda Todd.
That's considered often
as one of the huge examples of cyber-bullying.
But in fact , the man who was alleged to have
started getting her to take off her clothes for him,
and then blackmailing her,
is an adult man in Europe.
And he's been charged now.
So he did blackmail her,
and he did get her to keep doing more and more.
And finally, he did send it to the classmates.
And then, apparently, there was cyber-bullying.
But we need to remember then,
that wasn't just a situation of cyber-bullying.
And not minimize the cyber-bullying aspect,
but we need to understand the whole situation.
And the other question we need to ask is,
"Has an on-line or off-line episode triggered it?"
And we know that they often go together.
And the other example I think of, from Canada,
is Rehtaeh Parsons, who is a girl
who committed suicide as well.
She had allegedly been raped by some youth in her school,
in her university,
and had gone to the police a couple of times,
and nothing had happened.
And then a cell picture, an image of her, was sent around.
And then she was cyber-bullied.
So again, cyber-bullying played a part in it,
but if we think of it only as a cyber-bullying situation,
we're ignoring many other issues
that are also very problematic.
And I think that that's...
So we need to understand that it's very complex.
So, because a lot of the tragedies in the media
are often presented as simplistic and one-dimensional,
and people often are worried about making it more complex.
Because there's a worry that it'll look like you're
blaming the victim or you're condoning cyber-bullying,
or you're minimizing it.
But it really doesn't mean that at all.
What it does mean is,
we need to really encourage dialogue and reflections.
And what it does mean is that we need
to understand that it's complex.
So that's another place where
I think that social workers are critical.
That it's complex.
There's often not a simple answer.
And a bit about the prevalence.
Even though we don't talk about
traditional bullying so much anymore,
the prevalence of traditional bullying
is still considered higher.
So, cyber-bullying tends to be between 10-40%.
And the variation is for many reasons,
due to the samples, how it's defined, the methodology.
And also, as we'll talk a bit about later,
kids often don't describe...
What adults think is cyber-bullying, kids often don't.
They don't describe it as that.
So if you ask ask them,
and in the interviews that we did, actually,
when I was first listening to them,
I thought we'd get nothing.
Because the research assisstant would say,
"Have you ever been cyber-bullying?"
And the kid would say,
"No, I haven't been cyber-bullying.
I've never been involved."
And I thought, "OK, well..."
But then, ten minutes later,
they start describing an incident
that they don't think is cyber-bullying,
but it totally fits our definition.
But we need to realize that there's not one definition then.
You know, if we're going to work with kids and help them,
we need to be aware of their definitions.
And of course, there's risk and protective factors,
like in anything.
And the risk factors really are,
it's association with off-line bullying.
Kids who are vulnerable off-line are vulnerable on-line.
And vice versa.
And protective factors, again, is not a surprise.
School safety and climate, that's huge.
That's a huge protective factor.
And that's of course complicated,
because that takes commitment and resources.
And it's not easy to do.
And parental monitoring,
and that's the full monitoring, with the conversation.
The other paradox about bullying and cyber-bullying
is that for awhile, it wasn't on anybody's radar screen.
So it was often not taken seriously.
You know, it was just, "Oh, that's kids being kids."
So the good news is that we now take it seriously.
But what happens, and some people have written about this,
and I think it's very important,
is that if you call everything 'cyber-bullying',
and we don't pull out things like the bias-based
or the discrimination, we actually can't address the issue.
Because we can't ignore what the underlying motivations are.
And that's actually one of the things
my current study's looking at.
We're trying to try to kind of get a sense
of the underlying motivations.
So bias-based cyber-bullying would be
hate inspired cyber-bullying based on
actual or perceived social identities.
And it's based on societal discrimination and inequity.
So again, it says why it's not just about the child.
Children and youth come with their own vulnerabilities,
their own issues.
But it's taking place in the context of society.
So, the conditions that foster bullying
and marginalized youth appear across all levels
of the social ecology, including the cyber level.
So we need to be aware of that.
And I can't stress enough that cyber-bullying
occurs in the context of relationships.
It's not the technology.
And also, as with traditional bullying,
it tends to take place in the presence of witnesses,
who play key roles.
And in the cyber world,
it can be easy to become a participant,
because it seems like it's,
you're not going to be known.
They other thing that's important about witnesses
is that there's different roles they take.
But in the cyber world, because you can't see faces,
there's been some articles that have said
that if a child has been has cyber-bullied,
has nobody, nobody's coming to their defense
in the cyber world,
they assume that those other kids,
or the other witnesses,
agree with the bully or the perpetrator.
And that's really important.
It's the silence, really does say something.
So then,
I think this really does highlight it.
Because one of the things we know is that
kids do not report bullying.
They don't report bullying,
and they don't report cyber-bullying for many reasons.
And the reason I think that's critical,
is I don't think that's a problem of the kids.
I think it's a problem of the world and adults.
We need to help them find a way to be able to talk to us.
So, and I, in the research I have done,
both with traditional bullying and now with cyber-bullying,
we really find that youth don't disclose,
although they're very willing to disclose to researchers
who ask and who they feel are not part of their world.
And what they talk about is,
they often don't disclose until they feel
a situation feels unbearable.
And the reason that's a concern is because
they're delaying accessing the help
and supports that they need.
And often, therefore,
by the time they actually go for help, it's late.
And we know the tragic situations,
the suicides, it's too late.
But other times, it's late.
And other times, they do go or they show clues,
and we just don't notice it.
So one of the big questions is,
"What inhibits disclosure?"
Well, one of the things,
the big, number one thing,
is fear of losing access to technology.
I've had kids in grade four and five so eloquently say,
they know their parents have the best interests in mind,
they know they think they're doing the right thing.
But they can't bear the idea of losing their technology.
So they would rather risk the harm that may happen,
then to losing that access.
Because the access isn't to technology,
it's to their relationships.
And that's why we have to remember that
it's not a computer, it's not a cell phone,
it's their contact with the world.
And they don't want to make a big deal.
That's a really big thing.
And sometimes when they don't want to make a big deal,
they talk about parents and families
that are already burdened,
and they don't want to add to that.
And as I said, they often don't call it cyber-bullying.
So boys often call it 'trash talk',
and girls often call it 'drama'.
And Danah Boyd has written a very interesting book,
and some work on that.
But they often do call it drama.
And we're finding the same thing.
Kids in grade four.
So they haven't read Danah books
or anybody else's work,
and they say it's drama.
And the Code of Silence is huge.
That, the Code of Silence...
And there's actually some work done
on the point of the Code of Silence.
that if you are...
That's, you know, your child or a youth,
you want to be popular, you want to be cool.
And so you're not going to say anything.
Because if you don't agree with it,
but the dominant ones...
And we know, there used to be a method.
The people who were the perpetrators
were very problemed, had a lot of problems.
They had low self-esteem.
And some of them do, but a lot of them don't.
So we need to, again, be aware of stereotypes.
But that makes it harder for youth to say something.
And fear of retaliation is a big one.
And it's another thing that adults need to know.
Because often, we say to kids,
"Tell, and somebody will help you."
And again, young kids will say,
"Well, they think it'll help.
They don't understand there'll be retaliation."
And they're often right, there will be.
So again, I'm talking to an audience
that understands the importance of validation.
So these kids, they know, and they need that validation.
And a big one that actually
isn't talked a lot about is shame.
The shame of being a victim.
Sometimes people say,
"Will people tell you that they've been a bully?"
And I think in many ways,
it's harder to say you've been a victim.
Because of the shame and humiliation.
And the sense that,
actually, and I remember when I came back from Smith,
and we ran this camp, a therapeutic camp.
So one of the first things I did
in the groups of the camp is,
I asked kids about had they experienced bullying.
And can they...
So some of their answers were,
"Well, I get used to it, it's not so bad."
But other kids would just say things like,
I remember one kid poignantly saying,
but she just said it matter-of-factly, she said,
"Look, when you first meet me, you'll like me.
But then I get very irritating, annoying.
And then you'll bully me."
And so they feel like they're,
and other kids will call themselves,
like, "I'm the kid to be bullied."
So it's a deep sense of shame and humiliation.
And we know it's very hard to talk about that.
And importantly, they don't feel adults can help.
And again, they often say,
they get it, they know that adults want to help,
but they don't feel they can.
And then if they have disclosed, we have to be careful too.
Because often, kids disclose,
and they're more traumatized, or as traumatized,
because the adults don't believe them.
Or they think they have the right answer.
Or they think they contributed somehow.
And that's important because often,
we do know kids who get bullied in a chronic way,
are contributing in the sense of
they have a problem, but they're not doing it deliberately.
And if that's the first message they get,
Again, that's further shaming.
So, and the other thing is,
really important not to promise positive outcomes.
We often say, "Just go tell an adult."
And rather, and so, if they tell an adult
and they don't get help, they feel betrayed.
So rather, we need to say, "Tell an adult,
and if that adult doesn't help you,
go to another adult."
Because the message there is,
"They might not, but keep searching."
And one, I think everybody's probably heard of
the It Gets Better Campaign by Savage.
It was all over TV.
And there's a bit of research on it.
Because I remember when I first saw it,
I thought intuitively, I didn't like it.
Because the implication is, "It will get better."
Number one, it doesn't always get better.
That's the thing, it doesn't always get better.
And this is an adult man telling young kids,
"It will get better, just wait."
But if you're 12 years old, how are you going to wait
for 10 years for it to get better,
when it's going to happen in the meantime.
And the other thing is, some kids did take a risk,
and they did go tell somebody that they were gay.
And they shouldn't have.
They were not safe.
So, their initial hesitance was very well grounded.
So we need to be really careful in what we promise.
And rather, we need to be helping,
giving different options and giving strategies.
And this is nothing new,
that the mental health, that one boy,
this is not in my study,
but I found it very heartbreaking,
"Like a thousand paper-cuts eating away at your soul."
The reason I think that's relevant is because
often, when it's quote, "minor bullying,"
we say, quote, "minor bullying."
we say, "Oh, it's not a big deal."
But again, a thousand paper-cuts.
We know one paper-cut's not a big deal,
but a thousand paper-cuts, it's very harmful.
So we know it can be devastating.
And we know it's a huge concern.
And it can affect many areas of a child's life.
In terms of the impact,
and a lot of research has shown it really does have impact,
for victims: sad, anxiety, fear, aggression.
And it can really become pervasive.
Depression, suicidal ideation, and of course, suicide.
And I think it's important that it's not causal,
that it can be associated.
And it can be one of the very important factors.
One of the big problems is academic difficulties
and school avoidance, and difficulty concentrating.
And of course, that's important because that's going to
affect them as they go into adulthood.
And they can often have social difficulties.
And avoid social situations.
And substance use, unsafe sexual behavior,
and physical health issues.
Stomach aches, headaches, is very common.
And the perpetrators also are at risk
of having low self-esteem and depression.
And again, we don't know what comes first.
And substance use and delinquency.
And kids who are victimized are also more likely
to be perpetrators, and vice versa.
And that's more-so with cyber-bullying.
With traditional bullying, there tended to be three groups:
The kids who were victims, who were perpetrators,
and who did both.
And the ones who did both were the most vulnerable,
most problematic kids.
And cyber-bullying, it's different.
And we found that in our research,
and others are finding the same.
That it's much more of a back-and-forth.
And it becomes, again, harder then,
to determine what it is.
But we need to understand that,
and find out what that does mean.
And the other thing about cyber-bullying is,
it can be more frightening.
Because it's hard to escape.
And...
And you don't know, if they don't know who's saying it.
Traditional bullying is humiliating and scary enough.
And that's even with a couple kids,
or a classroom or a school.
But cyber-bullying, the idea of not knowing who's out there.
And some kids will even say it could be millions.
And even if they think it's millions, even if it's not,
that's what's scary.
And the hard thing, we can't emphasize enough,
how they cannot escape it.
Because their on-line world is critical,
so we can't tell them to turn it off.
Because they can't turn off their world.
And the other last point that's important is that
some studies have shown that it can affect,
can cause kids to be more depressed.
Above and beyond traditional bullying.
And some of the effects of cyber-bullying,
although we often talk about the effects on the victims,
but kids who bully other often are much more significantly
likely to use substance, substances.
And to exhibit rule-breaking behaviors,
aggression, get into trouble.
And of course, that affects their future trajectory.
And again, we don't know what's causing, which is causal.
We have to find that out.
And it's important too,
because it changes with age for both.
So the aggressor, when they're younger,
might become aggressive in dating, sexual harassment,
work harassment, criminality.
And the kids who are victimized,
we need to remember that too,
if they don't get the help they need
and don't get the message that they need,
they might be more likely to be victims later with that too.
And bit a about shame and humiliation.
There's very little on that and that's critical.
Because I really do think that's a big piece.
And we know that humiliation can be
associated with devastating consequences.
And it can increase thoughts of self-annihilation.
And the thing about the internet is,
on/off in kids, a lot of...
I have found this, and there's a lot written about it,
That kids will automatically,
when they turn on their computer or their cell phone,
will automatically go looking for
what that horrible thing was about them.
They just want to see if it's out there.
And of course, it is out there.
And one of the police that I work with
said that that's the number one request,
and he said that's more than a request,
that parents and kids beg them to take it off.
So the problem is, they can try to take it off,
but it can't be taken off because somebody else has it.
And we need to remember that the cyber world
can intensify the shame and humiliation.
And it can make that feel unbearable.
And that...
I guess I can't stress enough that then when kids
do come to adults, or adults find out
even if kids didn't tell them,
the adult's response is critically important.
And that's another place where I think
social workers are really, you know, important.
Because we understand the importance of validation,
working with a child, and where they're at.
In terms of if there is trauma,
not all bullying is related to, feels traumatic,
but it can.
There's three different kinds.
There's the actual behaviors
that are happening to the child.
And then there's the internal victimization.
Where the child, actually themselves,
blame themselves, feel they deserve it.
And then there's the cyclical process.
Where they're expecting it.
So even when we're talking about repetition,
there's been some talk.
And often, repetition's considered to be actual
repeated events where you're bullied.
but sometimes there's only one event,
but the child's expecting it to be repeated.
And hope, and thinking about that.
So that's critical too.
And then after the victimization,
with traditional bullying, after the victimization,
the child would often continue
to feel bad about themselves and blame themselves.
And there's the on-going effects.
In traditional bullying, it's
that they if were going to get help,
they could kind of work that through.
In cyber-bullying, that's more complicated.
Because on one hand, it happened.
On the other hand, it's alive on the internet.
So it's still real.
And we can't negate that.
And so the challenge is to work with that.
And somebody did a research study recently,
talking with therapists who were really trained with working
with kids who have been traumatized.
And then, when they had any experiences with kids
who were traumatized sexually on-line,
they felt completely out of their depth.
Even though they had worked with
the most horrific sexual abuse cases off-line,
the part that really threw them, on-line,
was the part that it was always there.
The permanent image.
And a little bit about gender.
The reason I'm going to talk a bit about gender is,
in our study, one of the things we found
that was unanticipated, and again,
it's just preliminary,
is we really found a difference that's gender.
And actually, with traditional bullying,
there's a difference with gender.
When bullying first started getting studied,
everyone thought that boys were
much more involved in bullying.
And then some people said,
"What about relational bullying?"
Because girls were often just described as,
"They're bitchy, this is what they're like."
Rather than realizing, this is not what they're like,
this is not their persons, this how they are aggressive.
So then we realized that boys tend to bully
in direct aggressive ways.
And girls tend to bully in indirect aggressive ways.
Not always, but that's the tendency.
So one of the questions is, in cyber-bullying,
how does that look?
And we were looking at the underlying motivations.
We didn't have this on our radar,
but I'll talk a little bit about this
and then I'll show my results.
But that, for girls, it really is sexualized.
And we have to put that in the context
of a world that's really sexualized, in terms of girls.
There's often rumors spreading about girls.
And it's really a tremendous amount of ridiculing
and demeaning their appearance.
And often, spreading rumors about them, sexually.
Some research has found that boys tend to spread rumors
because it's a way,
if they're attracted to the girl,
it's a way to make the girl more acceptable,
more closer, more approachable.
And the girls might spread rumors about girls
because they're in competition.
And girls experience the victimization
of cyber-bullying, for sure.
It's often related to sexual behavior and appearance.
And that's absolutely critical.
And they're not really talking about that.
So again, where we have, a tragedy happens,
and then we all hear about it.
And then we forget about it it,
it goes off the radar screen.
But it's happening on a daily basis with them.
And there's been a lot of research that shows
that with bullying, with what we call bullying
or sexual harassment, whatever we call it.
That happens early for girls, and it's pervasive.
In fact, a couple of research articles have said
that school is like one of the most unsafe places for girls.
And it often occurs in the presence of others.
And it's left unaddressed.
And it's not that the presence of adults,
it's not that the adults don't care.
It's that the adults either don't see it
or they don't define it that way.
In my study,
not on cyber-bullying, but on traditional bullying,
there were some situations with girls in grade four
where either a teacher or parent talked about
the girl having been upset by what the boys
were doing to her, touching her breasts,
doing sexual kinds of things in the class.
And in both cases,
these are very concerned mothers and teachers
who said things like,
"It's just that they're so adorable,
and the boys just really like them."
And it was often not until
they were doing it in the interview
that they heard themselves.
That they became quite upset.
And there was one teacher
where I actually had to stop the interview,
because she became so upset
when she realized what she had missed.
So it's just that, they're in grade four.
They just hadn't thought about it that way.
But it's important, again,
and the challenge is how to think about it that way.
And how to intervene, but not in an overly reactive way.
Because again, we don't want to shame and humiliate them.
But how to give the message.
Because if don't do anything,
the message the girls are getting
is that this is OK.
If a boy likes you, this is how he can do it.
And the message the boy's getting is also that it's OK.
And that's the time to intervene.
The challenge is to do that in a way that's subtle but firm.
And the kinds of things that girls experience,
girls and young women,
but we're just talking about the girls here,
threats of sexual violence, doctored photographs,
publishing personal information with invitations
to abuse the victims.
Now, I'm not going into this here
because it's not the purpose.
But one the areas that we have not heard about
yet in the world, is the kind of sexual violence
that a lot of women experience on-line, that's pervasive.
And these are adult women.
And many of them actually go off-line,
because they're not safe there.
And it's interesting to me that it's just not heard,
we don't talk about that.
But that's another area.
So back to girls.
So when we think about these girls,
and these are young girls,
they're navigating the context of the world,
and then what they experience.
So they live in an environment,
the media, celebrities,
where it's glamorized and they're pressured
to be popular, to party, and to be sexually attractive.
Like on Facebook, all the pictures, the pose.
And there's actually a lot of
literature on how they pose in a certain way.
And how they take a long time
trying to figure out the right pose.
But their experience is,
they're rejected or punished for being slutty.
And 'slutty' is very important
because that's a new word, that's an old word,
but it's right back.
It's used a lot.
And they're pressured to 'self-objectivize'.
So like I said, they're pressured to find,
and they often talk about how they spend hours,
and hundreds of pictures until they find the right picture.
But they're criticized for trying too hard.
And they're blamed for being sexually harassed on-line.
That's their experience.
And they're pressured to sent explicit images
of themselves to boys and men.
So, like Laurel, like Amanda Todd, like many.
And what's important is they're criticized
for taking these pictures.
And they're blamed for sharing them.
And I'll talk about that later in my study,
because we found the same thing.
And it's a culture where girls are harshly,
judge each other for that as well.
So they're criticized for wearing either
too much or too little.
And again, we have to think about, that's the context.
And the reason it's important,
and it's the reason I always feel like
social workers need to be involved
is we're aware of the individual propensities,
children's strengths, vulnerabilities, their family issues.
But also the societal discrimination and messages
that seep down and affect everybody.
And to deal with this, we can't just deal with the kids.
So, when we talk about somebody sending
a photo of a girl, we have to deal with that.
But we have to deal with the fact that
that's part of the whole culture.
And so, image based cyber-bullying,
there's very little on that.
But one research showed that
one in ten participants,
and these were kids in, I guess, high school,
in grades 11 and 12,
had been involved in image-based bullying.
Either as a perpetrator or a victim.
So when you think about that, that's one in ten.
That's a lot.
And in most of the cases, they knew each other.
Which fits all of the research.
And both boys and girls were equally likely
to be victimized.
But boys were more likely to be the perpetrator.
The National Campaign to Prevent
Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy,
they found that 22% of girls and 18% of boys
have sent nude or semi-nude pictures
and videos of themselves.
Usually it's to somebody important to them.
But it can be to somebody they know
on-line and not off-line.
And of course, it can affect many aspects of their lives.
They also found, which again, this fits with the other,
what I said about kids understanding the risk,
that we often say,
"Well, you know, let them know of the dangers."
Well, these kids between 13 and 19,
they're conflicted, they know it's problematic to do it.
They know it might get out, and they do it anyways.
And the reason we need to know that is
it means that the way we need to intervene and help them,
it's not just pure education.
We need to deal with the larger context.
We need to deal the more complex things.
Because even though they know it, they do it.
And over half of girls say they felt pressured from a boy.
And some of them talk about feeling worn down.
And they're also pressured by friends.
And some of them create sexy photos,
and some of them do it as a joke.
And we often talk about kids.
The message often is like,
"What is it with kids?"
But there's recently,
there's starting to be some research in young adults.
And the statistics are even greater for them.
And one thing I just wanted to mention,
in terms of the normality is,
there's a TV show called 'Homeland'.
Is that, the people watch that?
There's one scene where Dana, I think she's 14,
she comes home, she was put in a mental institute
for awhile because she's feeling depressed.
And she gets very connected to a boy.
Comes home, is not happy at home.
So the first night she comes home, she feels alienated.
She goes into her room, takes her cell, takes off her top,
and sends a picture to her boyfriend.
So what was striking about that is,
so it's now in the media.
Because everybody, you know, people were upset about it.
But there it is in the media.
And there was no cautionary tale.
Nothing happened, he didn't do anything with it.
So it just becomes part of the norm.
So when it's like that, a 14 year old girl
or a 14 year old boy watching it,
that can be acceptable.
And the other thing struck me is,
because I'm so hyper-alert to this, because of my research,
I was watching that episode with a few people,
they hadn't even noticed it.
They hadn't even noticed it.
It was just part of what happens.
So a little bit about my current study.
It's a three year study
with 19 schools in Toronto.
And it's both surveys...
We're looking at their, the digital experience.
How, their experience with cyber-bullying.
And then also, we're looking at their social support.
Their self-esteem and their relationships.
And we also, in the study,
have included their parents and their teachers.
But we haven't analyzed any of that yet.
So I'm just going to talk a little about
some tentative qualitative findings.
So again, 19 schools, more females.
Toronto.
They're pretty evenly distributed
between four, seven, and ten.
Two thirds of them were born in Canada.
It really does, when we looked at it,
the demographics were pretty close to Toronto.
8% identify as having a disability.
Toronto schools are divided
into low, medium, and high needs.
so they were pretty representative.
And we sampled on that basis.
We wanted to get the representation.
So some of the questions, the background questions.
How many hours they spent on-line.
Naturally, the older kids spend more time on-line.
But eve kids in grade four
spent an average of 1.4 hours on-line.
The prevalence, we asked about traditional and cyber,
and similar to other research, the cyber was less.
And much more as a witness.
So many more kids have witnessed it.
Another question we asked is how often,
how many of them owned cells.
And of course, it's higher by grade.
But kids in grade four,
a significant percentage of them own a cell phone.
And victimization, again, it goes down.
As traditional, it goes down by grade.
One very interesting finding we found
is that the parents and teachers reported that their kids,
and the students, were involved more than the kids were,
than the kids said they were.
So again, that's why it's important to kind of
get what they're saying.
And part of that might be
that the kids are not defining it as bullying.
And same as teachers.
An interesting finding that I think was disturbing,
but it talks about the need to educate adults,
is the kids, they did not differ,
boys and girls did not differ, in terms of
how much they said they were bullied
or bullied others on-line.
It was pretty equivalent.
When teachers and parents were asked,
the teachers, almost half of them thought
that there was a difference.
And out of all those, they all thought
girls bullied more on-line.
And parents, not quite as many,
but it was still pretty significant.
So again, that says that we really need to sort that out.
Give the education.
One of the questions we asked is whether they felt safe.
And they pretty much felt safe.
Which is interesting.
When we asked whether they would tell,
girls were more likely to tell adults and others,
although none of them were very likely.
And how often, how likely they were
to encourage the victimized kid to tell somebody.
And girls are more likely to.
So when ask about some of the behaviors,
in terms of embarrassing photos,
so quite a lot presented.
Said that they had embarrassing photos sent of them.
And that they had mean things said to them.
Posted pictures of them that were embarrassing.
And this is significant,
they're more likely to do it in the higher grades.
But 8.1% is still pretty significant in grade four.
And making web pages that were mean,
kids in grade four were more likely to do that.
And spreading rumors.
So these are all things that happened.
One question was whether they have on-line friends
that they haven't met in real life.
And again, they're more likely to do that
if they were in the higher grades.
But even kids in grade four were,
had a significant number of them
had friends on-line that they did not have off-line.
This question we asked only for grades seven and ten,
because ethics wouldn't let us grade four.
But 15% had seen nude or sexual photos of their friends,
family, boyfriend or girlfriend, or other romantic partner.
One unanticipated result is
that with students in distress,
in any research protocol,
especially with vulnerable youth,
you have to set up a process to identify
kids who might be in distress.
And who might become more in distress
because of the study.
And so what we did is,
we set that up so that we had a few questions
that identified kids who were in distress.
Or they scored a certain amount.
And we also gave them an option
to say they wanted to talk to somebody.
And then we'd have a research assistant
who was a social work student.
Which was very critical,
because they needed to have some clinical skills.
And if we decided that they needed to have a referral,
we would make the referral
through the principal, to social work.
So we were totally shocked by the number of kids
who were in distress and needed a referral.
And being at a university,
I found that really very important.
Because one of the priorities in all universities now
is students' mental health.
And yet, we're seeing these kids
in grade four, seven, and ten,
and they're struggling with mental health.
So we found in year one that almost one in five
identified as in distress.
Enough so that we had to actually go in and talk with them.
And in some cases, we had to go back a couple of times.
Because they were not interested in getting help.
So that's where we needed the social work skills,
to kind of, psychologically, work with them.
Especially if we thought they needed it.
So in year one, 18% of the students were in distress.
And in year two, 14%.
And we don't have year three yet.
But just...
They're more likely to be female.
And many of them, a third of them,
were identified because they said
they had suicidal thoughts or had done something.
And in the first year,
there was no relationship between grades.
So that meant the kids in grade four
were also likely to be in distress.
So in year one, 62% of the students in distress
we thought needed referral.
And in year two, 51% did.
And one of the other concerning issues
was that many of them had seen help,
been in help, been for help,
and they had not found it helpful.
But they felt they either
couldn't tell their parents about it,
or if they did, nothing happened.
So they weren't talking to anybody.
And it was very interesting that they came and talked to us.
So there were actually a couple of kids,
actually, more than a couple of kids,
who signed up for the study
just so they could talk to us about it.
I'm not going to go into all of the reasons.
But the reasons we broke it into three themes,
one was protecting themself.
That they were afraid that if they told adults,
they would be blamed.
They would be not understood.
So they felt that would not be good.
Another reason was protecting others.
A lot of them were protecting their parents.
They did not,
they felt their parents were already burdened,
they didn't need another burden.
In some cases, they came from ethnic or religious groups
where they felt that it would bring
tremendous shame to the family.
And then the last theme was really
that they felt adults wouldn't help.
So there was no point.
And another concerning thing is,
even though we made referrals,
39% of the students in distress in year one,
we found again, they were in distress the second year.
That was very concerning.
And so many of them felt that there was
nothing they could do.
So if we just go back to the findings we had again.
It's very tentative, but girls...
Just pulled out some quotes
about the kinds of things they're talking about.
So, one girl in grade ten talked about,
"..posting pictures of this girl I knew.
And it was very private pictures, so it was quite bad.
But usually when people comment,
they don't do nice comments."
And that's what really came out.
The picture's there, they don't don't just leave it.
There's a tremendous kind of...
Starting...
They all begin to write bad comments.
Another girl talked about sending pictures to somebody,
and then it'll get out, and thinking they can trust them.
And again, one of the themes that really came out
is that they tended to blame the girl for doing that.
Not one person said anything about the boy getting
a picture that was private, and that he shouldn't send it.
And then this is a girl in grade four.
And I thought it was really important
because she's talking about using the word 'slut'.
And she doesn't even know what it means,
but she knows it's despicable,
and she thinks it's to do with 'ugly'.
But it just shows it's part of that,
that culture.
And boys, one of the issues for boys,
they talk, they,
girls call it 'drama', boys call it 'trash talk'.
And there's a lot of homophobic comments.
And what's interesting though,
is a lot of it takes place in gaming sites.
And adults either don't know about it,
or don't consider it cyber-bullying.
Because often, it's not really you.
So, but when you interview these boys though,
they talk about it, it becomes very clear
that these homophobic, sexist, racist comments
can actually be very difficult for them to hear.
So this is one boy, again, talking about that.
So what he does is, he'll put his headset on,
and then take it off.
He doesn't want to listen to it.
So just another...
Just how they keep posting, keep laughing.
This, again, is a boy in grade four.
But when we looked at it,
and this seems to fit some of the other research,
is that it's starting to be normalized.
And I think that's what's important.
That participants really, they consider this,
they're not freaked out by the idea of it.
It's part of what they expect, it occurs often.
And a lot of them talked about
finding it disturbing and upsetting,
but a lot of them were not disturbed by it.
And this if just, again, a quote about how fast it happens.
And...
And then this, again, is just the betrayal.
That you think somebody is a friend,
and then they send it out.
But I think the big message that we're, that struck us,
is that it is getting normalized.
And that it's happening under the radar screen.
It comes to the media when there's a tragedy,
and then we forget about it.
But as adults, we need to deal with this.
Because it's part of the new society.
And there isn't a quick answer.
Often the answer that's given out is,
"Let's have new laws, and let's throw these kids in jail."
And I think most people working in the area,
including law enforcement, would agree,
that's only the extreme, that's one end of the continuum.
But that's not really the issue.
So I'm not going to get into cyber-bullying an adult.
But I think we just need to remember,
it doesn't stop after high school.
It takes place a lot in universities and colleges.
And workplaces.
It just hasn't gotten the attention
that it probably should get.
So one study showed, you can see,
that a lot of kids have been, a lot of young adults
have been involved in cyber-bullying.
Or they knew somebody who was.
And that there's not a lot of research on it.
There was more research on traditional bullying
in a workplace.
But we need to do that.
And when we think about the apps
that it happens on for young adults,
there's just a few of the apps.
There's so many apps.
And I don't know how many have heard of most of them.
Oops, sorry.
So one app...
Has anybody heard of YikYak?
So a couple, OK.
I had never heard of YikYak.
So what it is, it's a real-time app.
It takes place in universities,
so it could be happening here.
And the way you access it,
I'll show you it to you for a second.
They way you access it is, you turn it on,
and the closest university where somebody is using YikYak
is where you'll be able to come and see it live.
So we have a couple of screenshots.
And I've darkened some of these
because I just felt,
there's no way I could even...
I didn't even feel comfortable to show it as an example.
Because it was so offensive.
And this was happening in university.
In a class, a regular class.
And the name of the professor was mentioned.
And it's interesting, we looked her up.
And just coincidentally, she just gotten her PhD
from UFT, not in social work.
But it was...
So this is just,
this was like in a matter of two minutes.
And we kept in some of it,
but we tried to take out the real offensive stuff.
So again, that's under the radar screen.
There's also things like 'revenge porn sites',
where boyfriends send pictures of their ex-girlfriends,
along with social security numbers, and addresses,
and phone numbers, and explicit instructions
of what to do to them sexually.
So in terms of social work implications,
I think that
one implication is that the technological advances
far out-pace behavioral guidelines.
And I think that's where social work,
and Smith College,
understand that behavioral guidelines
are not the simple answer.
That we can't...
We need to be inclusive.
We can't just pick one or two behavioral guidelines.
We have to understand the whole context.
Oops.
I think the battery just died.
OK.
You know what, I'll just...
I've got my notes.
Sorry.
So the Ecological Systems Framework,
the person in environment,
I think that really fits.
And some people have started to add a 'cyber'.
So there's the individual,
the macro, and then the societal.
And then cyber has been added.
And some people have added it in the micro
and others have added it in the macro.
But I think that it really does fit.
That we need to have an expanded Systems Framework,
where we recognize that cyber world takes place.
And then we need to both assess for it,
so when we work with kids and their families,
we need to look and see,
what are they doing in terms of the cyber world.
And how does that help us know where to intervene.
And because we know that a child who's vulnerable,
and then there's other issues across
the different levels of their social ecology.
We really need to understand that.
And look at that.
And that helps us really know where the problems are,
rather than just coming up with a quick answer.
So some of the issues to consider is,
we need to consider the school environment.
We need to wonder, "Is it toxic?
Is there connectedness?"
And much research has shown that
school climate has a huge impact.
But again, it's a hard thing to change.
But we need to consider that.
We also need to consider the identity of the aggressor.
Because often it is a friend.
And when it is a friend, we need to realize
that it's happening in these very important relationships.
And some research has shown that, in a group,
for example, the one who is the most popular
no longer bullies in any way.
But the ones who are getting close to the top of that ladder
might be more aggressive.
So we need to understand the dynamics
and work with that.
And absolutely, adults' responses
to cyber-bullying is critical.
It can't be,
It can't be impulsive, and just reactive.
And often, the message is that the problem,
are that kids are doing this,
and we need to have laws to stop them.
So I don't know if you know, in Canada, there's a law now.
That actually, the Supreme Court did not, it rejected.
Part of it was that there could be...
Law enforcement would be able to access
all of their internet stuff without a warrant.
And the Supreme Court did not let them do that.
So the message,
the impulses are often to come up with laws.
And the message is that the bully, quote, "bully,"
is the problem, but we know that the kids who's a bully
might have a problem, or might be a problem.
But it's a problem in a larger context,
and we have to address that.
And so then the last thing I just wanted to say,
back to Laurel.
When I met with her, the big issue for her parents
is they also wanted to be very punitive.
And they were really decent people,
but they were completely freaked out.
They thought their daughter was very responsible,
and had good judgement.
So for them, this meant that she didn't have good judgement.
So in my work with her,
I met with her individually a bit,
and I met with her and her parents.
And what came out is, she had excellent judgement.
She was seeing this boy, she was a great student,
she was just a great, responsible young woman.
So everybody thought that she was kind of invulnerable.
But she felt insecure.
And what became evident is that
the boyfriend made her feel beautiful,
and her was very complimentary.
And then when he started asking her for a picture,
she said, "Absolutely not."
She definitely did not want to do it.
And he wore her down, and she felt she owed him something.
But, so for her parents, it was very important
for them to hear that she did have good judgement.
That that didn't go out the window.
But that she's young, and she felt pressured.
And she had lower self-esteem.
And also, at that point, we weren't aware of it.
It wasn't public in the world.
So this is also the context
of the world that she's living in.
Because 30 years ago, nobody would have asked for
you know, a poloroid picture.
But now with, she did it with a web cam,
now with the iPhone.
So that was very important, and that helped.
So that was really important for her and her family
to be able to resolve that, so that they knew.
They had to understand that she was a victim.
At first they just felt she was breaking their rule,
doing something that she shouldn't do.
But she knew...
It's not just that she was breaking a rule.
She did not want to do it.
But she needed to have that support.
And that's it.
(audience applause)
Sorry about that, sorry about that.
- [Josh] Take questions for five or ten minutes.
- OK, take questions for five or ten minutes.
Yes.
- [Voiceover] So, thank you for your talk.
I know that Toronto's a very multi-ethnic city.
Could you say something about any ethnic differences
in the results that you see, related to cyber-bullying?
- In ours, so far we haven't found any in ours.
And actually, the research is kind of mixed about it.
Some find that there is some, others don't.
So I think it's something we need to find more about.
But in ours, so far that has not shown up to be different.
Yes?
- [Voiceover] I work with a lot of young adults and kids.
And when...
Some of them, when they talk about
the internet and their photos, their pictures,
their communications, I think that they,
they're actually having sex.
This is their version of sex.
And what I said to one of my clients was,
"Would you have sex without a condom?"
She's 16 years old.
"Would you have sex without a condom?"
She's like, "Absolutely not.
No, I wouldn't do that."
And I said,
"Well, sending photos of yourself out on the internet
is like having sex without a condom,
because they're going to go,
they could go anywhere, millions of places."
So that, in that way, I got through to her.
But she was a person who isolated.
She was very over-protected by mom,
who had been a trauma survivor.
Very over-protected.
And so, with all that parental protection,
it afforded her a way to relay.
In a way that her writing
looked like pornography.
And the photos were very porn-[inaudible].
And we'd sat, had a long discussion about porn.
And she actually believed she was having sex.
Even though there was no - [Faye] Right.
- [Voiceover] human, physical - [Faye] Right.
- [Voiceover] contact.
- Right.
See, I think what's so important about that,
is that there's very little discussion happening like that.
The message is often just, "Don't do it."
And so I think that's exactly the kinds of conversations
that adults need to be able to have.
And that's, again, where I think social workers can help.
Because when I think of teachers and parents,
the last thing they want to do is
have that kind of conversation.
But we need to really open that up,
because that's the conversation that need to happen.
Yes?
- [Voiceover] Do you have any recommendations for us,
for those of us who work with kids and families,
how to learn more about the different platforms.
You know, as I hear about things from certain clients,
but you can't go on-line and snoop around,
and figure out what they are.
Because then, there you are.
- Well, you know, I think a great thing for the young kids
is to let them show you the platforms.
I mean, they're happy to do that.
And you know, I don't mean show you
all the stuff that they're doing.
But I think, you know, just like if you're talking to,
before this world, the class,
they would tell us about what they did.
So if this is what they do,
this is how the talk about their relationships.
So I think that's a really good way to have that happen.
So that they know that we're interested in it,
not just about the problem of it.
Because I think that's the other issue.
We often often talked about
only as a problem, like anti-bullying.
And opposed to understanding it.
And understanding the good things of the platforms.
Is that...?
- [Voiceover] It is, yeah.
I'm used to my teenage clients...
I'm used to like, if they tell me they
like a certain musician, and I'll go
and I'll listen to the music. - [Faye] Yeah.
- [Voiceover] And then checking it out, and that gives me
a lot of information. - [Faye] Yeah.
- [Voiceover] And I read the lyrics of the musician.
But it's harder with something like Tumblr.
They can show show me what they've posted.
But I mean, I could get them to show me more--
- [Faye] But so if it's Tumblr, let's say.
I don't know if people know Tumblr.
But Tumblr's a place where,
it's often considered a support place.
With kids who might, you know, be cutting,
or talking about eating disorders.
And they're getting support about that.
So I think it doesn't hurt to go on there, just generally.
And just so you understand
what they're being exposed to on that.
Because, and again, for the most part,
they feel like it's a support.
And again, if you're an adult and you look at it
and say, "Oh my God, they're being taught
how to do this."
But I do think there's a point to understand it.
And understand what it means to them.
How is it helpful, how is it not.
So I do think it's the same thing.
Only you wouldn't be doing it looking at their Tumblr,
you would just be looking at it in general.
Yes?
- [Voiceover] I don't know if you looked at this
in your research, but do you know,
has anyone looked at that effect of
something where the images of...
Images of cutting, for example, and how that
then flows through the groups.
And has anyone looked at how that affects
the kids choices or their behaviors?
- Not that...
I'm not aware of that.
But I think that people are just about to begin doing that.
I think people realize that's very important.
Yes?
- [Voiceover] Faye, I'm just curious as to
how you got involved in this topic
and what it's been like for you to be
getting to know so many of these social media sites
then, I assume, immersing yourself in them?
- Well, I got involved in the topic in a weird way.
When I was at UFT doing research on bullying,
and we had a new Dean come in.
And he wanted us to have a new magazine.
So in this new magazine, he had a little profile of me,
and a profile of somebody else doing technology.
And Bell Canada came to us.
They had been,
this is the benefit of being at a big university,
they came to us and said,
if we would write a proposal on
cyber world and something to do with cyber,
they would do it.
So I, because...
I guess I had just been hearing some stuff from kids.
I knew that that would be really valuable.
For me, it's been interesting.
Because when I started looking at cyber abuse and risk,
the thing it took me to is the cyber world.
And then also went to our therapy too.
Because the thing it really made me realize
is that it really is a whole new world.
And that we're not dealing with it.
In terms of the images and stuff,
I've head to really struggle with that.
And I've spoken to other people who do too.
Because on the one hand, I see these images
and go, "Oh my God, they're awful."
And they are awful.
But then, so you can't just say that to the kids.
So I realized the balances of how to work with them.
Because this is part of the norm.
So how do you not condone it,
but not make it go underground?
So I feel that's the challenge.
Because I think it's very easy to make it go underground.
Yes?
- [Voiceover] I have a request and a question.
My request is, when you answer, can you
move back to the mic? - [Faye] Oh, sorry.
Sorry, yes, OK, sorry.
OK.
- [Voiceover] And the question is,
I don't know if you've looked at this,
but do you imagine that there are any cultural differences
between the Canadian experience that you're studying,
and the US one?
They may well be exactly the same, but I'm betting
there's something culturally different there.
- I think there must be.
And I know I'm...
Although I'm, so far I'm not aware of it.
And I've worked with some people in the states
who are doing it.
And again, I think it's so new, we're still learning.
But so far, I've not been really aware of any differences
with the ones who are doing it in the states and Canada.
But it's very new.
It's very, you know, we're just having
to get more specific now.
Yes?
- [Voiceover] One thing I really appreciated about your
talk this evening was how you talked about how
technology is just an integral part of
a youth's experience these days.
And I also liked how you talked about how
there's a disparity in technology fluency
between parents and the children.
But I think that's the place
where it makes it really, really hard.
Because I think a lot of parents do feel that
they're actively parenting, when maybe in fact,
so many things are slipping unnoticed by them.
I'm an educator of
middle school aged children. - [Faye] So you would know.
- [Voiceover] So I'm just wondering if you had
any recommendations for maybe something I could do
to start a conversation with parents.
Because we have this curriculum night every school year,
where we talk about what we're going to cover over the year.
I'm really feeling the need to include
this whole cyber-reality as a...
sort of like a checkpoint for parents.
Where maybe I can start that conversation and say,
"We need some more active parenting."
But they may not feel very much advocacy
with their own cyber abilities,
and to be able to actively parent.
So how, what would you recommend for approaching--
- Well, I would say two things.
The first things I would say is,
I think parents need to know that even though
the kids are technologically superior,
cognitively and emotionally, they're not.
So parents need to know they're needed.
That they actually can help them,
that they really need that help.
And I think they also need to know then,
that they don't have a choice.
That, and they don't need to be as technologically adept.
Because one of the ways they can do it is
they can have their kids teach them the technology.
So that can be part of the thing.
The kids can be teaching them the technology.
And they can be talking with them
and opening that conversation.
And I think that's really important.
In Europe, one of the things they do,
they've always been ahead of us with that part of that,
and part of it's because their countries are smaller,
and they were homogeneous.
They don't focus just on anti-bullying.
They focus on pro-empathy, pro-positive interaction.
So I think that's what you can do.
If that can be the deal.
But I think parents need to know they're needed.
Because it's not right when we say kids know it better.
They technologically do, but they're not...
They're not prepared for that.
- [Voiceover] I think, and I'm sorry to continue,
but the part about how you said
one of the things that keeps kids from reporting bullying
is the fear that they'll lose their technology.
Because I think that's the first
go-to for parents, - [Faye] Absolutely.
- [Voiceover] is that, "I'm taking your phone away."
- And it needs to be the last one.
- [Voiceover] Right, and I think that's something
that I've learned tonight through your presentation,
that I could maybe impart to parents.
That maybe that's not the best idea for...
- Absolutely.
In our research, that's what they all say.
And the other thing parents need to know, I think,
is that they're given them,
they've gotten the message,
and they've given the message.
Everybody knows it's a risk.
Kids are doing it anyway, so they don't need the lecture.
They need the help.
And they really, the other thing I would say to parents is,
it's, and I would say, like drinking and driving.
They need to help them navigate this new world.
And it means expecting there to be problems.
And...
And the parents need help to not overreact.
Because often they'll think it means they're condoning.
So we need to give that option,
"But if you get into trouble, come talk to us."
Because kids are very aware and they feel like that.
And they use words like their,
like, "My parents will hate me.
They think I'm disgustiing."
- [Voiceover] Thank you.
- OK.
- [Voiceover] ...I think you should call it a night.
And again, thank you... (audiences claps)
Excellent.
- Was it OK?
- [Josh] It was really good.
- OK, [inaudible]