CYBERBULLYING CRASH COURSE

A wide-ranging manual focuses on the world of cyberbullying.

When bullying happens to somebody in person, writes Beam at the outset of his compact nonfiction debut, it’s fairly obvious. A fight erupts between children in a schoolyard; the kids are separated and brought to the principal’s office; the matter is quickly sorted out; and the bully is cautioned or punished. But cyberbullying leaves no traces, the author points out, and it’s far from being merely a childhood problem. “Plenty of adults are cyberbullied through dating apps, chat rooms, social media threads, and the posting of unwanted content, like in photo extortion,” he writes. “This problem does not just stop at cyberbullying; it also extends to cyberhate, where people are targeted because of their religious belief, skin color, sexual orientation, or political views.” In other words, everyone lives every day in an environment fraught with many forms of cyberbullying, and Beam’s book provides a wide-angle overview of some of the most prevalent forms it can take in the modern age. These range from the rise of online sexual predators “catfishing” students and young people online to cyber-harassment designed to “target, embarrass, and silence the victim.” The author notes that new advances in technology make virtually every aspect of cyberbullying both easier and more pervasive: “The sky is the limit” for things like online impersonation. But even older forms of online activity can be enlisted for bullying, as when individuals make a website intended “to aggregate everything they want to share with the public, ensuring the target is completely embarrassed.”

In all such cases, Beam tends to favor straightforward, common-sense advice. When it comes to pirated photo manipulation, for instance, he advises that people never send “sensitive content” to anybody (even a trusted friend) that they wouldn’t want broadcast to the entire world—a sound rule for all aspects of online dealings. The book’s organizing message, aimed at parents and teachers, details all the clues that may point to children or teens being cyberbullied (excessively hiding their phones, indulging in sudden and unexplained bursts of anger, withdrawing from families—all signs that they’re concealing something that’s troubling and embarrassing them). Beam underscores the deadly urgency of such pressures by reminding his adult readers that cyberbullying can happen to anybody and that it can quickly create very dark feelings of rage and helplessness in its victims—feelings that can push even a seemingly self-confident young person to despair and perhaps thoughts of revenge or suicide. For all of this, Beam offers some simple correctives: privatize online accounts, set internet times and enforce them, bolster self-esteem in kids and teens by “encouraging their passions (even if they deviate from your idea of cool).” The author quite rightly emphasizes the crucial importance of teaching children empathy, and the advice given here will help greatly with that. Anyone who has ever dealt with cyberbullying will find useful insights in these pages.

A wise and levelheaded look at cyberbullying and some possible remedies.