Session Information
05 SES 05 A, Examining Bullying and Conflict
Paper Session
Contribution
Social media environment, which also includes social networks and mass media, has become an integral part of young people’s lives. Social networks (or social networking sites) have an influence on individuals and their relationships (Butler, & Matook, 2015). That is why the information environment presents a fruitful area for educational research examining the mass media as one of the sources of potential risks and chances. On the one hand, due to the development of new information technologies and the internet, modern society is experiencing a peculiar ‘compression effect’ that gives people a chance to become closer to each other not only in virtual but also in the real world (Selezneva & Skripak, 2013). On the other hand, uncontrolled access to the internet and social networking sites sometimes can make people (especially young people and children) vulnerable to fake news and cyberbullying (Hinduja & Patchin, 2010). One of the cruel examples of cyberbullying could be online game ‘Blue Whale’, also known as Silent House, ff33, 50 Days Before My…, Wake Me Up at 4:20 am. It is an arcade game based on the principle of a quest that lasts for 50 days, when a player has to complete all the tasks under the supervision of a gate-keeper. Participants of the game in 2014 - 2018 were reported to be mainly from the post-Soviet countries. The extant research literature on the issue shows that the ‘Blue Whale’ phenomenon extends itself on other countries such as India (Khattar, Dabas, & Gupta, 2018; Mukhra et al., 2019). At the same time, there was no correlation between the family welfare and adolescents’ victim behavior (Blue Whale, 2019). In view of this, it is essential to fill an existing research gap and study the game algorithms in a timely manner in order to develop and implement necessary preventive measures.
The main research aim is to conduct systematic literature review of the principles of psychological and pedagogical support of young people and children in case of cyberbullying in Poland and Russia. The guiding research questions are:
1) What are psychological and physiological characteristics of adolescents who were victims of cyberbullying and destructive challenge games on social networking sites?
2) Are there any socio-cultural factors that determine victimization of adolescents in suicide groups, or the phenomenon has a global reach and is not influenced by a specific culture?
What are the principle of psychological and pedagogical support for the victims of cyberbullying and destructive challenge games developed by specialists in Poland and Russia?
Method
Consideration of prior, relevant literature is essential for all research disciplines and all research projects. When reading an article, independent of discipline, the author begins by describing previous research to map and assess the research area to motivate the aim of the study and justify the research question (Snyder, 2019). That is why as a main research method we planned to use systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature. For the purpose of our research we will use the newest and most reliable positions, prepared by specialists worldwide. On the basis of the systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature we will formulate principle of psychological and pedagogical support for cyberbullying victims. The research sample comprised (200 groups) destructive groups on the social networking platform VKontakte (vk.com). The keywords and hashtags ‘Silent House’, ‘ff33’, ‘50 Days Before My…’, ‘Wake Me Up at 4:20 am’ were used. VKontakte is a popular SNS among Russian-speaking adolescents living in the post-Soviet countries. The first suicide group ‘Blue Whale’ was started on this SNS by the user ‘Blue Fox’. In 2014, users could stay absolutely anonymous due to the registration policy. To date, according to the research results, there are still children who participate in such destructive groups in Russia. Criteria-based content analysis of social groups on the SNS VKontakte was conducted. The analysis was based on the following criteria: data security, coverage of the problem in the psychological and pedagogical literature, destructive groups’ user activity.
Expected Outcomes
Social networking is rapidly developing and young generation cannot imagine there life without electronical devices. Computers, social media give us a lot of educational chances, but bring also some risks. Cyberbullying is one of them. It is a new phenomenon and the educational systems today is not well prepared to solve this problem. That is why it crucially important for the specialists worldwide to join the best practices of psychological and pedagogical support for young people and children. Although today, ‘Blue Whale’ groups do not pose a major threat, their popularity in 2014-2017 showed that young people and children are vulnerable in terms of information and personal data security. The research results showed that any child is at threat and there are no specific social and cultural factors influencing the victimization of children and youth. The problem of destructive games is challenging and of vital importance worldwide. The logic of the game will be detailed during the presentation. As for the reasons destructive games became popular among adolescents, it was reported that players romanticized the game itself, its victims and the way they terminated their lives. At the same time, the study revealed that the education system today is not prepared to solve such problems. Based on the research results, we identified weak spots in the system of young people’s socialization and can make recommendations regarding preventive actions. These findings will allow us to formulate psychological and pedagogical recommendations for support of cyberbullying victims. Dissemination of the research findings is also of vital importance as one of the preventive measures.
References
Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Akert, R. M. (2015). Social Psychology (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon. Blue Whale (game) (2019). Retrieved January 10, 2020, from https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%82_(%D0%B8%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0) Broadhurst, R., Grabosky, P., Alazab, M., Bouhours, B., & Chon, S. (2014). Organizations and Cyber crime: An Analysis of the Nature of Groups engaged in Cyber Crime. International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 8 (1), 1-20. Butler, S., & Matook, B. (2015). Social Media and Relationships. In: The International Encyclopaedia of Digital Communication and Society. Edited by Robin Mansell and Peng Hwa Ang. JohnWiley & Sons, p. 1-12. Cyberbullying Among Young People (2016). Retrieved January 29, 2020, from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/571367/IPOL_STU(2016)571367_EN.pdf Farrell, P. (2019). Cyberbullying, Suicide and AI: Technology made it happen, and technology has to be the solution. Retrieved January 28, 2020, from https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/cyberbullying-suicide-and-ai-technology-made-it-happen-and-technology-has-to-be-the-solution-6a2baaa5034c Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J.W. (2010). Bullying, Cyberbullying, and Suicide. Archives of Suicide Research, 14, 206-221. Kiriukhina D.V. (2019). Cyberbullying among Young Users of Social Networks. Journal of Modern Foreign Psychology, 8(3), 53-59. Khattar, A., Dabas, K., & Gupta, K. (2018). White or Blue, the Whale gets its Vengeance: A Social Media Analysis of the Blue Whale Challenge. Social and Information Networks. Retrieved January 10, 2020, from https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.05588 Mukhra, R., Baryah, N., Krishan, K. et al. (2019). ‘Blue Whale Challenge’: A Game or Crime? Science and Engineering Ethics, 25(1), 285-291. Online Bullying Among Youth 8-17 Years Old – Russia (2012). Retrieved January 28, 2020, from https://enough.org/objects/ww_online_bullying_survey_-_executive_summary_-_ww_final.pdf The Content Analysis Guidebook. Retrieved January 10, 2020, from https://academic.csuohio.edu/kneuendorf/SkalskiVitae/SkalskiNeuendorfCajigas17.pdf Selezneva, R.S., & Skripak, E.I. (2013). Social networks as the phenomenon of the information society and the social ties. Vestnik Kemerovskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 125-130. Snyder, H. (2019). Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines. Journal of Business Research, 104 (November), 333-339. Zhao, J., Gao, F., Xu, Y., Sun, Y., Han, L. (2020). The relationship between shyness and aggression: The multiple mediation of peer victimization and security and the moderation of parent–child attachment. Personality and Individual Differences, 156. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2019.109733 Zhao, Y., Zhao, Y., Lee, Y.-T., Chen, L. (2020). Cumulative interpersonal relationship risk and resilience models for bullying victimization and depression in adolescents. Personality and Individual Differences, 155. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2019.109706
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