Pink Shirt Day 2018 was upon us this week, a day when students actively participate in conversations to minimize the impacts of cyberbullying, to increase digital literacies and to assess their online discourse in an evolving technology-infused world.
This year, Pink Shirt Day was aimed at addressing the issue of cyberbullying by thinking twice before posting harmful content online and using social media to share kindness.
Cyberbullying is not as active of a topic in February 2018 as it was in February 2013, but it is part of the needed conversation in a connected world.
Cyberbullying continues to evolve with trends and internet use but, over the past five years, we as citizens, parents, educators and coaches have made some serious change in British Columbia in how our schools approach this problem.
The student theme for Pink Shirt Day 2018 reflects that change by not focusing on the negatives but by engaging conversations of kindness and understanding.
Recently, I worked with a group of students who discussed hate online. They questioned where the lines of hate speech and freedom of speech converged and how to identify the threats to safety that impact a school community.
Major news events regarding safety in schools help propel these conversations and the world of politics plays a role in how kids assess online commentary. Admittedly, in the past two years, it has become difficult as an educator to stand in front of a group of students and state, “Watch what you put online, it might negatively impact you” when those children watch politicians who use Twitter to cyberbully, without care or thought of others, get elected.
Digital literacy is a critical part of the cyberbullying conversation and I try my best to help kids understand that if you are promoting hate and violence against a particular group or a person, you are part of the cyberbullying concerns we have. It is not a difficult task to get kids to understand that using social media to promote hate, to torment another or to ridicule others is unacceptable.
This behaviour will eventually be met with consequences and there are plenty of examples for teachers to reference, but the task of educating kids that social media is an extension of the learning environments they share with classmates is a daunting task for a school administrator.
Kids respond so instinctively to real-time online conversations with friends and classmates, and understanding what is being said versus how it is said can be difficult for anyone to decipher. Kids understand that what happens online is no different than the school hallway but an ever-present question exists: Is their behaviour any different than that adults demonstrate online?
For adults, Facebook is inherently useful. It is where we as adults converge, to connect, and to share what's going on in their lives. But there are hateful posts and ridiculous comments, and I am almost never surprised by the vitriol of adults online — and I can only hope that kids will be the change we need in the future.
The social media platforms that youth participate in are reflections of our adult uses of digital media and mobile technologies. Youth equally want to see the drama, the rants, the complaints, to find entertainment and source information — just like adults do.
This Pink Shirt Day, if you are concerned about our young people and cyberbullying, ask yourself about how you use the internet, how you screenshot the content of others, take photos without permission, comment online and what you share for the world to see.
The question becomes: Is it just the kids who have to share with kindness online or is it all of us?
Jesse Miller is the founder of www.mediatedreality.com, a social media and digital literacy education company in Vancouver, who specializes in addressing digital literacy in schools across Canada and works with school districts to address the positive and negative impacts of children and technology use.
