Inappropriate Use of Digital Media - Evelyn Marolf

We have all been in situations where someone said something through social media that was hurtful – whether it was intended or not. As a middle and high school educator, unfortunately, I see examples of this more often that I would like. One of the most recent examples was with a group of high school boys. One of the boys in the grade posted a video of himself playing and singing a song that he wrote on guitar. He is not one of the popular kids and doesn’t often have the best social cues. A few of the other boys in the grade reshared the video with a caption that to most would be taken as making fun, but the boy in the video thought it was a compliment. This just made the other boys think the situation was funnier. I found out about this when a girl in the grade brought this to my attention because she was worried about the boy in the video being picked on. In this case I talked with the boys and had them take down the social media post and apologize. Things like this can make others feel very self-conscious. One of the lessons here is that it is much easier to say things that are mean through social media than in person. The students should have stopped and thought about what they were doing prior to posting – thinking about how they would feel if the rolls were reversed.

It is always sad yet happens so often when one student is made fun of something they did or posted online and it is shared by others as a joke. Cyberbullying is so common and it is hard to stop and sometimes even hard to relize it is happening since the majority of it goes on outside of school.  Hopefully, we can continue to educate others on ways to interact positivly and what happens when they done so that Cyberbullying is limited.