Cyberbullying – Being Mean Online

 

Lower Grades Digital Citizenship Lesson for the week of June 1st

When friends or classmates are mean at school, we know what that looks like…

• making fun of how you look or what you wear
• not letting you play with them
• spreading rumours or lies about you that aren’t true
• sharing personal information about you (gossip) to hurt your feelings or embarass you
• insult you for how good or not good you are at something

We also know how bad that kind of meanness makes us feel…

 

Even though the internet can be a super fun place to spend our time, the same kind of meanness and bullying can happen when we are there too.  CYBERBULLYING is what you call bullying or meanness that is online.

The way it looks online is…

• being mean to other players in a video game
• posting rude comments on other people’s  webpages, photos, or videos
• posting and sharing embarrassing or mean photos of someone online
• excluding someone from participating online

These things make us feel just like we did with real life bullying…

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes people are meaner online than in real life, because if you were with the person in real life, they would be able to see how bad you felt about their behaviour.  Online they aren’t seeing how you are reacting to what you they are saying (example crying), and that makes people think less about the impact of what they are doing.

Here is a short video that shows an example of cyberbullying and what you can do about it.

In the video the girl talks to her parents who talks to her teachers and they put an end to the cyberbullying.  It is really important to tell a trusted adult about cyberbullying if it is happening to you.  They can help you to figure out what to do about it and how to stop it.

Another way to be a great digital citizen online is to stand up to cyberbullying when you see it happening to someone else.  This is called being an UPSTANDER.   Tell your friend who is being bullied how great you think they are.  Tell the bully that mean comments are unwelcome.  Or tell a trusted adult about your friend being bullied.

And finally, there are buttons on websites that say BLOCK and REPORT ABUSE.

• • BLOCK means that you have the ability to block somebody from being able to see or comment on your account.
  • REPORT ABUSE is a way to tell the website or game owner that someone is misbehaving on the site.

Never use these buttons as a joke because they are permanent and can’t be undone.

Now you know how you can stand up to cyberbullying and be a great digital citizen.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT:

In the comments on this page, write about a time that you experienced cyberbullying or saw it happen to someone else.  If you haven’t seen examples of this, write about one thing you will do if it happens to you or to a friend.