Cyberbullying has ushered in a new era of cruelty and elevated the spread of hate and hurt exponentially. In previous generations, we were limited in our ability to spread information, containing much of the misery to the school day or bus ride home. With the rise of social media and personal smartphones, beginning around the 2010s, and from the comfort of our own homes, however, we now, with the tap of a screen, can share information with thousands or even millions of people. “Near instantaneous” is now the speed at which we can communicate with someone on the other side of the world, when generations ago it would take months for a letter to sail on a ship across the seas. 

Two contrasting examples of speed and reach over two generations:

1. In the 7th grade, I was turning the handles of two double-dutch jump ropes when a classmate came up behind me and yanked down my shorts, pantsing me in front of my entire P.E. class. Humiliated, I dropped the jump ropes, pulled up my shorts, and ran behind my teacher (who did absolutely nothing– he was a grumpy old man). Did the kids in my class laugh? I have no memory of that, only of the deep shame and embarrassment I felt. I still remember the exact pair of shorts I was wearing that day. Though the experience has stayed fresh with me over three decades, no one in my class had a camera to snap a pic of my humiliation, or a video recorder to document the moment. No one uploaded my embarrassment to a platform for strangers to see and comment on, deepening the shame. And even if some of my classmates thought it was funny, I don’t ever remember anyone saying anything to me about it again. The pain was my own private torment.

2. A few years ago, a grandmother told me a story about her grandson, who was a star athlete at a huge public school. His team (let’s say it was soccer) had made it to the state finals. It was a competitive game with two really talented teams and the stands full of crowds cheering on their school. Down to the last few seconds, this young teen had the chance to shoot and score the winning goal…and he missed. He was devastated, as was his team, but also– in a state final, only one team was going to emerge victorious. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of his heartache. Video of his missed shot went viral and in the coming hours he received 500,000 direct messages on his instagram page berating him for his mistake. His personal pain was now ripe for public consumption, comment, and derision. 

Speed is one thing. Reach is another. Today, “cyberbulling” is part of the digital experience, and it has magnified “typical” (albeit painful) childhood cruelty to a new level. 

To talk about “cyberbullying,” it’s important to first define “bullying.” 

Years ago, when I taught 7th grade English, I often incorporated social skill building into my lessons. What I realized was that middle school students really liked to talk about themselves– not just the characters in the books we read. So we did both, and often compared and contrasted them.

Conversations around bullying naturally came up in our conversations. I relied on the excellent definition created by Dan Olweus, a Swedish-Norwegian psychologist, who is often seen as a pioneer in research on bullying. His conceptualization and definition of “bullying”-- a word that gets tossed around a lot– was extremely useful to me and my students.

For many of us, we picture a “bully” as Moe from Calvin and Hobbes, the mean boy on the playground who pummels Calvin and steals his lunch money. And indeed, Moe was a bully. But bullying is much more than just a big kid stealing your lunch money. And as we’ve seen with the rise of social media and online trolls, real-world bullying has morphed into cyber-bullying, a digital extension of the real-world pain and misery.

Social media didn’t exist in its current form when I was teaching (Facebook was nascent), but I would hear my students toss around the words “bully” and “bullying” very loosely. Often I’d hear a student shout to me, “Emily! She’s bullying me!” said playfully when a best friend was teasing another friend. 

But was this, indeed, “bullying”? How did teasing and friendship and cruelty and social power play into this? And how could I help my students see that the word itself is a powerful label, whose connotations create problems for the one being labeled too?

This is where I want to start: with defining “bullying” in the way I have for over two decades, first as a teacher, and now, as a parent, and inspired by Olweus’s work.

For an interaction to be called “bullying” three things need to be true:

1. It is a repeated behavior (done more than once)

2. It is done intentionally (with a goal to hurt or harm someone else)

3. There is a power imbalance between the person doing the bullying behaviors and the person being bullied.

Conveniently, those three terms can be shortened into an acronym: “R.I.P.” Repeated. Intentional. Power Imbalance.

The simplicity of this definition helped my students (and me) clarify situations and led to some very important conversations especially around social hierarchies. We talked a lot about what “popular” means and how we know who has social power and who doesn’t. We also discussed how “teasing” isn’t the same as “bullying”-- and that teasing is what happens when two people agree and are being playful. And if/when that crosses a line, an apology is offered and relationships repaired. 

Of course today, young people are dealing with the new version of bullying– “cyberbullying.” Olweus’s definition is still applicable, but with an addition:

For an interaction to be called “cyber-bullying” three things need to be true:

1. It is a repeated behavior (done more than once)

2. It is done intentionally (with a goal to hurt or harm someone else)

3. There is a power imbalance between the person doing the bullying behaviors and the person being bullied

4. That occurs online or via a digital platform or tool.

Though bullying isn’t really new, cyberbullying is (relatively) and Pew Research has the numbers to illustrate the problem. (Jonathan Haidt also covers a lot of this in his book, The Anxious Generation). One high-level measure is that nearly half of U.S. teens have experienced some form of cyberbullying. 

Of course, the internet allows not only increased spread and reach, but creative ways to intensify the cruelty too. Teens make fake social media accounts– either to bully another student anonymously, or as their target to get them into trouble for social media misuse. Screenshotting is rampant and problematic, private moments again turned public. Even the school-issued devices are weaponized for cruelty, as students figure out how to chat (or bully and demean) within apps like Google docs. 

So the question for my work here becomes: What can parents do about it?

The short answer is– unless your family lives completely off the grid and uses no technology, you’re better off preparing for the When, not the If. 

As I’ve written about before, a solution exists– but it would require technology companies to fundamentally change how they do business. Currently, the design of social media platforms and smartphones is fundamentally at odds with child development and what is best for human relationships. They profit off our children’s pain, and it is very, very lucrative. Until they are forced to (via policy changes or litigation), they won’t, so for now, the burden falls to parents.

If you’ve read my essays for a while now, you’ll know that I have deep concerns about relying on parental controls and monitoring tools to protect children. Even the companies who create those tools know they aren’t fool-proof, and we’d be wise to remember that children are naturally curious and the internet encourages sneaky behaviors. So parental controls are not the (only) solution either.

Instead, the way to prevent– as much as possible– cyberbullying and to address it when– not if– it occurs is to go back to becoming tech-intentional and remembering the TL;DR:

1. Later is better

2. Less is more

3. Relationships and skills before screens.

In this case, “later is better” means delaying access not just to digital devices, but the platforms themselves (often accessed by younger children on a parent’s device or family tablet). It’s just math– the more time a child spends online the more likely they are to encounter cyberbullying, so delaying or limiting access as much as possible when they are young is imperative to their safety.

“Less is more” follows that same equation– if and when you do provide access, know what tools or platforms your child is using, avoid those that are known to be problematic (like Roblox and YouTube), and assume that even if you’ve set this rule (“No Roblox or YouTube”), children are still likely to encounter it on friends’ devices or school computers, or simply because “no” is an invitation to find out why. 

Which leads to the third– and arguably the most important– piece to all of this: prioritizing relationships and skills before screens. Your relationship with your child deeply impacts their ability to navigate the tricky situations that will inevitably arise with digital technology and internet access. It is absolutely critical that you– or another trusted adult– can be the person to whom a child can come when– not if– they encounter cruelty or bullying online. 

And when our child comes to us– because he’s encountered porn or witnessed or experienced cyber-bullying or saw something she doesn’t understand, our first and only response needs to be this:

“Thank you for telling me. I’m so sorry that happened to you. I am going to figure out how I can help you.”

It’s okay if we don’t know in the moment what to do– most of us won’t. That’s normal. This is unprecedented. What’s critical here is to thank our child for coming to us– to validate that the right thing to do is to tell a trusted adult. We can figure out the next steps as adults, but we want to reinforce the message that coming to us for help is the behavior we want to see more of. 

It’s not fair that children run the risk of seeing horrible things on the internet. It’s wrong that they could be victims of online cruelty. And it is not our fault that parenting in the digital age is fraught with so many high-stakes situations. However, while we continue to pressure Big Tech to make the changes we know they are capable of making to better protect children, it remains our responsibility to teach our children how to handle digital difficulties, navigate social complexities, and identify trusted adults they can come to for help. 

These are the skills that children will need to thrive in a digital future.