Cyberbullying Isn't Usually True Bullying — But Social Media Is Still a Problem
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses the important distinction between actual cyberbullying and the broader harm that social media causes young people.
Key Takeaways
- Most online conflicts aren't bullying - True bullying involves repeated, targeted harassment with a power imbalance — much of what's called cyberbullying doesn't meet that definition
- Social media is harmful regardless - Even without bullying, social media damages youth mental health, self-image, and attention
- Precision in language matters - Calling every online conflict 'cyberbullying' dilutes the term and makes real bullying harder to address
Transcript
I think a lot of what people call cyberbullying is not really bullying.
And if we want to help young people deal with cyberbullying, part of our solution probably needs to be getting them off of social media entirely, or at least blocking the people who are engaging in the behavior that we're calling cyberbullying.
Because bullying requires an imbalance of power.
and it requires some sort of direct action.
Like talking about people behind their back is not really bullying.
It's unpleasant.
It's kind of one of the worst aspects of human society is gossip.
Like gossip is different from bullying.
And one of the things that we have to help young people understand as they grow older, as they mature, as they deal with more complex social situations, is that you can't stop people from talking about you behind your back, right?
There's no inherent right to not have people talk about you.
And part of maturity is learning to not worry too much about that, right?
Like if you are constantly worried that other people are saying things about you behind your back, well, that's going to mess you up because you may be completely wrong about that in the first place, right?
Like there may be nothing happening behind your back, but worrying about it.
is going to harm you so i think that's part of the message that we have to send young people is don't worry if people are talking about you behind your back don't worry about the opinions of people that you don't care about don't worry about what people might be saying if they're not your friends you know work with your friends be friends with your friends but don't worry about everybody else in the world and when it comes to social media in particular You've got to block people.
I mean, like if you knew how many people I block on TikTok and on Twitter, because just the amount of abuse that will find you if you don't do that, it's just out there and you just have to do that.
And when it comes to friendships and relationships and the socialization that young people do, like we've got to start getting young people to do more of this in person, offline, not on social media.
I think it has just been a terrible thing for young people over the last decade or so that so much social interaction for them has been moved to online platforms where frankly people don't learn the lessons they need to like you don't learn the lessons you need to about how to make friends and how to get along with other people online it's just not the place to do that so i think we don't need to worry about social media bullying so much we need to worry about social media period we need to worry about kids being on social media when they should should be instead interacting with their friends in person and just like get off social media or block the people who are a problem let me know what you think Thank you.