Lesson: Think Before You Click (Grade 5-12)
Understanding and preventing a Digital Pile On
This free online lesson is excerpted from the Digital Pile On chapter in Cyberslammed and only contains a portion of the lesson. Reference the book for the entire in-class curriculum.
Lesson Rundown:
Students are introduced to the concept of a common tactic called a Digital Pile On, which uses group intimidation to single out and "gang up" on an individual in a digital environment such as chat rooms, online forums, Twitter or Facebook comments.
Objective:
Students will be able to:
Materials Needed: Download and distribute this "Digital Pile On" comic to everyone in the class. View here.
Click to print out on a color printer. Best copied in color.
Lesson Rundown:
Students are introduced to the concept of a common tactic called a Digital Pile On, which uses group intimidation to single out and "gang up" on an individual in a digital environment such as chat rooms, online forums, Twitter or Facebook comments.
Objective:
Students will be able to:
- Understand relational aggression tactics better in an online setting
- Make deliberate choices to communicate positively online
- Practice empathy while "pre-playing" scenarios to become upstanders
- Learn strategies to avoid becoming a target of a Digital Pile On
Materials Needed: Download and distribute this "Digital Pile On" comic to everyone in the class. View here.
Click to print out on a color printer. Best copied in color.
Introduction
How A Digital Pile On Happens: The Internet has its own culture and rules, something young people don’t always grasp as they navigate through this territory. A Digital Pile On reflects adolescent behavior that has always been around, whether it is offline or online. Students assume they are only communicating with their friends when, in fact, their messages are broadcast to a vast invisible audience. These are classic communication mistakes made by newbies. Compounding the problem is the fact that unsupervised online areas often breed incivility. A 2009 AP-MTV Digital Abuse Study found that nearly half of young people (45%) report that they see people being mean to each other on social networking sites. With a Digital Pile On, there is almost always a ringleader, someone with a grudge or a motivation. Dr. Rick Brinkman and Dr. Rick Kirchner, authors of Dealing With People You Can’t Stand: How to Bring Out the Best in People at Their Worst, have a term for this type of ringleader: a Sniper. With the anonymity and protection of closed Internet communities, and armed with a motive, the Sniper has the perfect opportunity to attack with rude comments, sarcastic humor, and biting commentary, much to the amusement of the followers. Often, bystanders who are lurking to witness the drama unfold turn into followers when they choose to join in and make an online comment that supports the bully's position. An ally (or upstander) is a person who chooses to defend or support the target. Most teachers will recognize the “ganging up” aspect in the accompanying comic, but online conflict isn’t always clear-cut. Once you’ve gotten through the Discussion Topic to the right, summarize for your students the actual roles of each participant. Digital Pile On: The Roles of the Players From The Bully’s Perspective: The ringleader, or main bully in this case is the anonymous poster who attacks the girl in the comic first. It is very common to “misread” something someone says online because often conversations are quick, offered without much forethought and the written word is not accompanied by tone, inflection, or facial gestures. For this reason, online communication often leads to a misunderstanding, which is a typical source of conflict. From the Target's Perspective: The more the conversation went out of control, the more powerless the girl int he comic felt. The anonymous posters switched tactics very fast—instead of the real issue (the joke about her friend's award) they started flaming her, excluding her and then, threatened to start a mob mentality against her in person the next day. Feeling cornered, she tried to defend herself, but this backfired. (More on how to prevent this later.) From the Followers' Perspective: The disinhibition effect takes place when the anonymous posters cannot see or read social cues while "communicating" with the target; therefore she says horrible things (i.e. "pile on") without feeling much empathy for the target. As much as students are learning 21st Century skills from the Internet and social media, one of the biggest things missing from their digital training are social-emotional literacy skills such as empathy building. Another purpose of the Empathy Exercise is to encourage neutral bystanders to strategize ways to be upstanders or allies in future cyberbullying situations. |
Vocab Words
Ally: A person who takes a stand to defend the target. Bystander: A person who is present at an event without participating in it. Empathy: The capability to share another being’s emotions and feelings. Disinhibition: Unrestrained behavior resulting from a lessening or loss of inhibitions or a disregard of cultural constraints. Exclusion: Intentionally rejecting someone from an online group, such as on a “buddy list,” Facebook group, or game. Flaming: Online “fights” using electronic messages with angry and/or vulgar language. Followers: People who don’t start the bullying, but join in and have the potential to escalate it. Name-Calling: Verbal abuse, especially as a crude form of argument. Newbie: One that is new to something, especially a novice at using computer technology or the Internet. Sniper: One who attacks other people from a concealed place, defined by the authors of Dealing With People You Can’t Stand. Target: The victim of the bullying or cyberbullying. Step 1: Teen's Personal Story
First, download and distribute the comic under "Materials Needed." This true story came from a high school girl cyberbullied by a Digital Pile On. The comic introduces a personal story for the students that starts off this lesson. Step 2: Discussion Topic
Define what a Digital Pile On is to your students. Ask them if they’ve ever been ganged up on in a Digital Pile On or if they've participated in ganging up on someone else? Have they ever said anything online that someone misinterpreted or took the wrong way? Ask your students to identify who is the target, who is the bully and who are the followers. See "Roles" to the left. Step 3: Empathy Exercise
Teacher/author David A. Levine developed an empathy-building exercise below called the Event Empathy Action (EEA). The EEA is a three-step advanced listening approach that teaches students how to respond to others with empathy. The following activity works best in a low-tech classroom. After the students have read the comic, ask them to pretend that the incident has just recently happened to a close friend of theirs--and that they were watching it all unfold on Facebook.
When the class has completed this simple exercise, ask students to pair up in threes as a group. In each three-person group, allow each person to read one answer to the above questions and discuss briefly as a group. On the blackboard write down the various groups' answers. |
Preventing a Digital Pile On
The following are several tips from the Digital Pile On chapter of Cyberslammed. If there is time in this lesson, discuss Netiquette with your class and ask students to volunteer their own strategies for avoiding online conflict. There are many additional pieces to this chapter, including more conflict resolution exercises, how to identify a Digital Pile On at its lowest-to-highest spectrum (and when to bring in the administration, police or even an attorney) and how to help students transform a traumatic Digital Pile On with resiliency.
Did this exercise work well in your classroom? If so, please feel free to share on your social networks! |
Vocab Words
Netiquette: (Net etiquette) Rules for communicating with others on the Internet. Trolls/Trolling: Intentionally rejecting someone from an online group, such as on a “buddy list,” Facebook group, or game. Final Class Exercise
Discuss with your class the three behavioral tips to the left in preventing a Digital Pile On. If there is time left in the session, give handouts of the Netiquette list and go over some of the core rules that apply to this lesson, specifically: Rule 1: Remember the Human. Rule 2: Adhere to the same standards of behavior online that you follow in real life. Rule 10: Be forgiving of other people's mistakes Ask your class to break up into small groups and make a list of their own suggestions to prevent being the target of a Digital Pile On. More Resources
We are currently working on providing more online classroom materials from Cyberslammed. The book itself is a built-in classroom curriculum examining more common tactics. For more resources, visit our website: www.cyberslammed.com and for daily tips visit our Facebook page. |
This information is copyrighted by Cyberslammed and is being offered for free to educators, counselors and parents for use in the classroom and at home. Any other use of this material needs the permission of the authors at [email protected]