One in 5 students in Sardinia are victims of school cyberbullying. But the phenomenon "is worrying and growing, and requires an ever greater and more frequent intervention of adults, be they parents or teachers".
This is what emerges from a study conducted by Eurispes with the contribution of the Regional Department for Planning and Budget and thanks to the collaboration of the Regional Department for Public Education.
The research involved 97 schools on the island (48 lower secondary schools and 49 upper secondary schools) for a total of 3,586 children, 1,361 parents and 837 teachers, who were subjected to anonymous questionnaires.
What emerged from the answers of the interviewees? First of all, almost 20 out of 100 young people (precisely 19.6%) declared that they had been subjected to acts of cyberbullying.
Who are the cyberbullies? - The research has also drawn the identikit of cyberbullies: they are between 13 and 19 years old and are, to the same extent, girls or boys. In fact, the research showed that 50.3% of the perpetrators of digital harassment are male and 49.7% female.
As for the "means" used to bully peers, group chats and individual messages stand out (on WhatsApp, Telegram and similar applications). The most reported acts are silent phone calls, telephone jokes or exclusion from Whatsapp groups.
The victims - And then the victims, who are mainly girls between the ages of 15 and 19 who end up in the crosshairs of "keyboard bullies". But what do cyberbullying cause in boys? feeling lonely, having felt anxiety and anger and there have been cases of real depression.
The "spectators" - An ad hoc chapter is dedicated to the "spectators", or peers who happened to witness the harassment. They are the same age as the victims - so they are mostly girls between 15 and 19 years old - and faced with the abuses they felt "pain and anger", but they often said they were unable to take a position.
Parents - Parents chapter: the interviewees - reads the research - ”stated that they are giving their children between 6 and 11 years of age a cell phone for the first time, often checking its contents. In addition, they have provided them with a computer connected to the Internet in a common area of the house; in this case, the device was also monitored through the “Parental Control”, ie the tool that allows you to monitor or block access to certain online activities.
When their children were victims of cyberbullying, they adopted a variety of behaviors. The most frequent: they suggested that they ignore oppressive behavior; they talked about it with the school staff; they contacted the parents of those responsible directly; they tried to understand the situation better by talking about it with their children.
The common opinion among all parents interviewed was that such episodes require adult intervention and that this is a worrying and growing phenomenon. They were also very prohibitive as regards the use of the Internet: they prevented them from communicating with unknown people, from disclosing personal data on the Net, from meeting people known online, from staying connected for too long, from accessing some sites. web, etc. ".
“However, what emerged most strongly from the interviews - it is highlighted - was the predominant opinion according to which virtual identity and real identity are not the same thing. Parents were also of the opinion that reality and virtual reality are two different things. In other words, there was a lack of basic awareness that what is done to identity on the Net corresponds exactly to reality. Overall, the conceptualization deficit of reality and virtual identity has allowed not only young cyberbullies to build a sort of psychological digital immunity that has protected them from becoming aware of the harmful effects that digital harassment has produced on the lives of their peers, but it also allowed the parents of the victims to underestimate the effects of cyberbullying, if we consider that the most frequent suggestion given to their children was to "ignore these behaviors".
The teachers - Finally, the teachers. "From the interviews carried out with teachers - the researchers explain - it emerged that a small part of the same interviewees were victims of cyberbullying and turned to school staff".
“When, on the other hand, it was the pupils who were subjected to acts of cyberbullying, the teachers suggested that they contact their parents, or, alternatively, the teachers contacted the person in charge or managers directly. When these episodes occurred, the teachers found it very difficult to make the students aware of the gravity of their actions, as they claimed that the authors of these acts were not aware of the gravity of the situation, considering them only jokes between children ". “The predominant opinion, among the interviewees, is that cyberbullying is a worrying and growing phenomenon, and that it always requires the intervention of adults. They also stated that the best way to defend children from the dangers of the Net is to talk about the risks of the web in the classroom. However, they argued that real identity and virtual identity are two different concepts and that reality and virtual reality are not the same thing. Not only young people, but also adults, therefore, have mistakenly believed that only on the web it is possible to alter characteristics of recognition and reveal personality traits that one does not possess. As a consequence, from this, the general rule can derive that real identity and virtual identity are different ".
How to intervene? - The research also suggests possible ways of intervening to prevent or manage cases of cyberbullying. That is: training activities aimed at teachers and students, periodic information events reserved for parents by sector experts to provide socialization agents and children with indications to recognize and cope with all the dynamics that can lead to behavior harassers.
(Unioneonline / lf)
