Is technology to blame in cybersafety?

Written for ReachOutPro.com

Introduction

The Internet, particularly, Social Networking has become the target of blame for the negative behaviour that young people are exhibiting online. Young people are earning the reputation of using online technology for cyber bullying and unwanted sexual solicitation, causing damaging effects on their peers and themselves .¹

Findings also suggest that middle school students who are early adolescents are beginning risky behaviours on the internet, especially acts of cyber bullying and sharing intimate personal information² (i.e. photos, videos, through webcam) with people they know or don’t know very well online.

The purpose of this article is to establish a reasonable level of understanding that there are underlying mental health factors that could possibly cause young people to become either perpetrators or victims of cyber bullying and unwanted sexual solicitation. This is a more constructive view for the purpose of prevention, compared to one that seeks only, to blame technology.

The Case

The majority of young people online are not involved in cyber bullying or unwanted sexual solicitation either as victims or as perpetrators. This is good news. Unfortunately, “among those who are, however, psychosocial problems are apparent.”³

It is evident that Web 2.0 is changing the nature of human interaction, in a way that “accentuates deficits in the capacity for self-sustaining, reciprocal peer relationships”.⁴ However, is the talk of banning Social Networking Sites and controlling the Internet the right solution? Many schools in the Northern Territory have a ban on the use of Facebook in school, due mostly to cyber bullying activities.

How does the defendant plead?

There is reasonable doubt that Social Networking sites are the direct cause of negative behaviour, able to cause young people to become either perpetrators or victims of bullying or unwanted sexual solicitation. If this assumption is true then banning social networking as a preventative effort will not have any effect on behaviour or protect young people who are most at risk. Other avenues for perpetration and victimization will eventually surface.

The Evidence

So, why does this happen to young people? There are many changes and therefore also many challenges that occur in the life of an adolescent. Changes and challenges that is both physical and mental in nature. For example, in adolescence, the importance of sexuality increases dramatically and so does sexual curiosity. The internet is then used in unsafe ways to satisfy this curiosity.⁵ Young people consequently are known to search for sexual partners online, send intimate information to strangers or make unsafe sexual contacts.

The effect of peer influence also has a role to play in adolescent behaviour. Findings suggest that “adolescents future risk behaviour can be partly predicted by their perceptions of their friends’ behaviour”.⁵ Peer pressure has always been around, even before the idea of computers ever dawned in the minds of inventors. The nature of young people to identify ‘in groups’ and ‘out groups’ in their social environment, coupled with the lack of education to embrace diversity in society, has led to consequences such as ‘name calling’ and other forms of bullying.

The claims of bullying and victimization associated with social networking do not seem justified. Both these types of online problems faced by young people are associated with emotional distress and concurrent psychosocial problems, including depressive symptomatology and offline victimization. Suggestions to regulate or prevent youth from using social networking sites as a preventative methods is yet to be examined empirically.⁶

The Appeal

I appeal to have more funding for online youth outreach, school anti bullying programs and online mental health services.  These prevention efforts supported by evidence made available through research⁵ will be more effective in the long run.

Paediatricians, public health professionals, parents and schools should educate themselves and their youth on what contributes to the likelihood of online bullying and unwanted sexual solicitation. “Parents should also focus not only on their children’s social networking site activity but also on their psychosocial profile and general online behaviour (e.g. harassing others, meeting people in multiple different ways online, and talking with people known only online about sex). Parents should also be aware of with whom, where and about what topics their children are talking online”.⁶

I rest my case

Policy makers and health professionals should focus on prevention that focuses on young people’s behaviours online and their psychosocial profile instead of particular technologies. Programs on online mental health interventions for vulnerable youth and Internet safety education can be designed and offered in schools for students and parents that apply to all types’ of online communications.

References

1. Guan SS, Subrahmanyam K. Youth Internet use: Risk and opportunities. Current Opinion Psychiatry 2009 Jul;22(4):351-6.
2. Dowell EB, Burgess AW, Cavanaugh DJ. Clustering of Internet risk behaviours in a middle school student population. Journal of School Health. 2009 Nov; 79(11):547-53.
3. Ybarra ML, Espelage DL, Mitchell KJ. The occurrence of internet harassment and unwanted sexual solicitation victimisation and perpetration: association with psychosocial indicators. Journal of Adolescent Health. 2007 Dec;41(6 Suppl. 1):S31-41.
4. Pridgen B. Navigating the internet safely: recommendations for residential programs targeting at risk adolescents. Harvard Review of Psychiatry 2010 Mar 4; 18(2):131-8.
5. Baumgartner SE, Valkenburg PM, Peter J. Assessing Causality in the Relationship between Adolescents’ Risky Sexual Online Behaviour and Their Perceptions of this Behaviour. Journal of Youth Adolescents. 2010 October; 39(10): 1226–1239.
6. Ybarra ML, Mitchell KJ. How risky are social networking sites? A comparison of places online, where youth sexual solicitation and harassment occurs. Pediatrics 2008;121;e350-e357