“Who loves her??? No one!” , “I'm going to rape you in the mouth with my feet and film it on camera!” , “I'm dying. I'm rolling down the wall and yelling at my pillow for help,” these are quotes from the websites of 13-year-old classmates from School N in Dzerzhinsk. Not only the VKontakte group of this class, but also the entire teenage social network is increasingly reminiscent of the cruel wild island of children from Lord of the Flies: on the Internet, they flock into packs, bully the weak and submit to the strong. RR talked with Galina Soldatova, author of the Children of Russia Online study, about cyberbullying and how to return civilization to teenage social networks.
Alina and Lena shoot themselves on their cell phones in an abandoned graffiti house. They jump over broken windows, up stairs without railings, and reach a balcony that does not exist.
They're looking down.
I want to jump off, Lena says, smiling.
“You're stupid,” Alina responds cheerfully.
They're going back to the stairs. Posing for the camera, they write something on the walls.
Alina and Lena are 7th grade students at School N in Dzerzhinsk. I found their VKontakte pages by poking, typing the phrase “who hates” into the group search.
The fact is that they hate Alina. There are 44 people in the hate group. The band's avatar shows a pretty blonde girl about twelve years old. The group's wall is voting “How much do you hate Alina”. Answer options: 1000%, 500%, etc. 22 people voted.
“Why did you do all this?” — someone asks on the wall. “She just makes us mad already!!! That's it.” “And who loves her? No one!!!” — the inscription accompanies an image of a heart crossed out by a black line.
Next poll: “Is Alina Berezkina a fool?” 24 people voted. “What the hell are you?!” — asks a girl named Ksenia. “Ksenia, are you for her? Ugh!”
The next vote also includes Ksenia in the list of people you should hate.
Don't start a conversation with rude people online.//Don't make a mistake yourself—//Don't offend anyone, the Internet reads in a childish voice. This is an educational cartoon character that has so far been shown only in a few Moscow schools. The Internet site talks about the dangers that a child may face on the Internet and formulates the rules: “Angry people on the Internet//Set up their networks.//With strangers//Don't go to a meeting.” Now Internet, a soft toy, is sleeping on a shelf in Galina Soldatova's office, leaning against a RuNet Award statuette for her project “Children of Russia Online”.
Galina Soldatova is a Doctor of Psychology, Professor at the Faculty of Psychology at Moscow State University; for several years now, under her supervision, research on the activity of Russian children on the Internet has been conducted. Soldatova also manages the Children Online psychological hotline, which receives dozens of calls every day from all regions.
— We started working with primary school because the age of access to the Internet is falling: in 2011 it was 9-10 years old, and now it's even lower. Many children already at the age of 5 feel confident online. They are as easy to operate there as they breathe.
— And how does the Internet affect them?
— The “digital generation” is changing its higher mental functions: now children do not remember information, but the way to it. The brain is looking for a way to adapt to the barrage of information. These kids can focus in ways we couldn't: watch a movie, chat, look for a new profile picture and drink juice at the same time.
— What problems do people most often call the hotline with?
— For children, the Internet is primarily not a source of information, as it is for adults, but a means of communication. Therefore, children most often experience communication difficulties. Cyberbullying comes first: bullying, insults, humiliation. Cyberbullying is carried out deliberately, systematically and is directed against the weak.
— Why is this happening?
— It is easy for teenagers to realize their aggressive tendencies on social networks. Aggression is inherent in human nature, but in the process of life, a person learns to behave, part of the aggression goes to sports... And on the Internet, aggression can be freely expressed. This does not mean that the percentage of children prone to aggression is increasing. It's just that we are now watching things on video and social media that we couldn't see before. So far, all this looks like an island from Golding's book Lord of the Flies or the situation in Roland Bykov's film The Scarecrow.
But if a child used to be bullied at school, and then he went home and could forget about the bullying for a while, is the process ongoing now?
— Yes. In addition, the whole city, or even the whole world, is now seeing the bullying. You can plunge into it at any time by pressing the computer or mobile phone key. Cyberbullying differs from ordinary school aggression precisely in its scale: it is witnessed by a large number of friends, hence the high risk of suicide.
— Cyberbullying comes first, and what comes second?
— Calls from parents whose children have experienced sexual harassment online, so-called grooming. Unfortunately, such cases are not uncommon. Moreover, they sometimes involve very young children. For example, there was a call from the mother of a seven-year-old child — someone tried to discuss intimate topics with him online. The child was confused, did not understand what it was and came to his mother. But if the girl is twelve years old instead of seven, she will already go out to date. Our children talk to strangers online twice as often as they do in Europe: they are already working with children about safe online behavior.
Thirteen-year-old Alina “took” the name of the boy she is in love with and celebrated her love in status. Alina has a “son” — an invented baby page with her lover's last name. Alina puts a sexy smile on her avatar with her tongue between her teeth. On her wall, there are reposts of photos with hearts, bears, babies. “Who is better?” survey — and three classmates' last names. Some more traditional questions like “Do you love me?” , where friends should celebrate their degree of love. I freeze on the poll “Will you be happy if I'm not alive?” I'm voting no to see results. Most people like me.
Lesha from the 7th grade of school N is Alina's lover. The avatar is a thin boy with more than 660 friends. The photo gallery is open to anyone. Lesha does not smile at any of them. He hides in a hood, lowers his eyes, shows off a tattoo on his shoulder and an earring on his infant round and smooth chin. Next in the photo album is a black picture “The subscriber is dead! P.S. Nobody needs him anyway.” Schoolboy Lesha is a member of the bands “Disney Cartoon Lovers”, “I Would Blow, I Would Fuck”, “Butt” and “+18”. Its wall is full of half-naked girls and obscene language. When I visit his page again, I see a repost of a photo of a bloody Jesus and the inscription “I asked Jesus: “How much do you love me?” Jesus said, “That's so strong.” And he stretched out His arms on the cross and died. If you love Jesus, post it on your wall.”
Lesha is in love with another girl and is a member of a group that hates Alina. Leshin's status states: “I'm 99% dead.”
At the request of RR, psychologists from the Internet Development Foundation (run by Soldatova and based on the Children Online hotline) analyzed Lesha's page for suicide risk. The three-page examination is a detailed analysis of the child's photos, music, statuses and comments. Psychologists' conclusion: Lesha is a narcissistic person; he keeps a page not for communication, but for the sake of attracting public attention.
He wasn't looking for music by bands and composers, but by typing the phrase “club music” into a search engine: his music was part of his self-presentation. His image is a narcissistic poser who is fed up with even the topic of sex, which is so exciting for teenagers.
“Confused about what exactly is him and what is his reflection, the boy loses contact with his emotions, plunging into boredom and emptiness, and this boredom, so uncharacteristic of children, makes him exceptional, aggravating his posture,” psychologists write in their conclusion. “There is a risk that such a person will bluff to the last, firmly believing in the built image, otherwise the game will collapse. Making statements similar to those on his avatar (“the subscriber is dead”), he simultaneously believes and does not believe what he writes.
The boy has no true desire to die: children suffering from depression, which can result in suicide, usually feel completely apathetic and powerless, and they are unlikely to care about what they look like to others. But there is a risk of demonstrative suicide. Demonstrative suicide is the most effective manipulation to draw attention to your person, as well as an easy way to get emotional encouragement (“When I die, they will understand who they lost...”).
In this case, the teenager will try to eliminate the possibility of death as much as possible, but due to poor awareness of human physiology, he may not calculate strength.
The possibilities of psychological assistance to such teenagers are limited: any attempt to “talk” is interpreted by a demonstrative person as an excuse to deepen his posture, driving him further and further into the role of a martyr. Methods to distract children from such behavior include useful and interesting extracurricular activities, hiking trips, clubs and communication with parents in order to teach the emotional experience of trusting open communication without “masks” and “poses”.
I ask Galina Soldatova if such narcissism is typical for all teenagers who spend a long time on social networks.
— This quality is being intensively developed thanks to social networks. After all, what is a VKontakte page? Self-presentation.
Within 24 hours, Alina manages to “marry” herself to another boy. The avatar now has a picture of both of them with hearts. It is not clear that Alina is particularly worried about being bullied. She took revenge on her main offender and created the band Who Hates Yana Shapovalova (names have been changed).
Yana is a girl who is poisoning Alina. Her hate group now has as many people as her victim. One of Alina's friends is a rapper. He composed a song about Yana and posted it publicly in the band: “Your photo makes me want to vomit. Vomit flows across the monitor as you walk down the school hallway and you know something... When I meet you, I'll give you a stake, after you... on the floor, it'll hurt, but I'll care. I'm gonna rape you in the mouth with my feet and film it on camera. Then I'll post a video on VKontakte and tag your mom and dad and let them see what crap they raised.”
23% of children who use the Internet face bullying. Of these, a third of children aged 11-12 experience bullying more than once a week. 25% of Russian children admitted that they insulted someone online over the past year. Once they reach adulthood, these children may have to change their last name and first name to erase their online biography. This opinion about the “digital generation” was expressed two years ago by Google Chairman Eric Schmidt in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Hotline psychologists have released a brochure for parents: how to help a child if he is a victim of aggression. “Teach children how to respond appropriately to other users' hurtful words and actions. You should not communicate with the aggressor or try to respond in kind. The best way to spoil a bully's trick is to respond with total disregard.”
You can sound the alarm by watching the child's mood during and after chatting on the Internet. The brochure encourages you to tell your child about your concern about what is happening to them and have a confidential conversation to see how far it has gone. You need to make sure that online insults do not translate into real life, delete the child's personal data from the page, help him block the offender, and if bullying is brewing in the classroom, inform the class teacher. Sensitive and reserved children who are not confident in themselves and do not know how to build relationships with peers are usually bullied. But that's not the case with Alina: two girls are just fighting for leadership in the class.
— How do children experience cyberbullying?
— This is a drama that has been going on deeply and for a long time. Younger children turn to their parents for help, while older children do not turn to people who are offline, but to those who are also online.
— Like Alina, who asked her friend to avenge the bullying?
— Yes.
— Are people bullied on the Internet as they were at school?
— Bullying can start in real life and then go online. But sometimes the opposite is true: bullying from the Internet spills out into the real world. After all, you can learn more about a person without sitting at the same desk with him, but by reading his VKontakte page. You've learned as much about Alina as her homeroom teacher and even her mom can't know.
— So how can we help Alina? Now if I were her mom...
We don't know how Alina and her mother are doing, but apparently they don't talk to her heart to heart. It happens that parents are much further away from the child than a friend from the Web. There is debate now about whether parents should ask their children to make friends on social networks. I'm convinced it's worth it. You just have to do it on time. And Alina has already been missed. Now if mom saw her page, she would sound the alarm...
On the contrary, I would be reassured that, judging by the page, Alina is not particularly upset that she is being bullied.
— This is a misleading reaction: as a psychologist, I am convinced that she is very worried.
The 7th grade of school N in Dzerzhinsk went on vacation. Soon, a video recording appears on the wall of Alina Lenochka's friend: “We remember, love and mourn.”
On the video — Alina. He sits on the edge of the roof of a high-rise city building. He says something illegible and indignant, pushes off and screams down. The video ends with the filmmaker's swearing. There are only two comments — from a friend and friend, the rapper: “Alina jumped from the 9th floor :( How we all loved her (((”.
There must have been another tier of the roof, because the screech was short when it fell. Perhaps that's why my classmates didn't fall for it. Alina reposted the post to her page, accompanying her rapper friend with a song: “Hello Alina, can you hear me? Why did you idiot jump off the roof? The city of Dzerzhinsk, a nine-story building, took a step off the roof and thought you would be taller. But you fell down and there was no pain. No fear, no sadness, no happiness, no will... How dare you forget about all those you care about? Thank you so much to the doctors who saved your life. But just hold on! We believe in you. Wake up soon...”
— She feigned suicide. This is a dangerous symptom. A training jump can be taken seriously.
— She was waiting for a reaction. Five people liked it.
— And it's good that it's only five. It would be worse if she received a large number of rewarding reviews. But the poor reaction suggests that for children who visit her page, such a video is a chore: think, she jumped off the roof... Suicide is constantly being discussed among them. The focus on this topic is including their way of overcoming the fear of death. They can talk and talk — and overcome their inner fear. Other interests will come, and life will move on. But there is a risk group where such a discussion is dangerous.
... “I'm dying. I'm just drowning in these thoughts. I reach out to get out of the swamp of pain and hate, but I can't. Help me out. I'm losing my mind. I roll down the wall and yell at the pillow for help. There is probably not a single thinking person who has not thought about suicide at least once in his life.” This is an inscription on the wall by Lena, Alina's friend. Lena considers herself an emo. The status has crosses, and the discussion of death has been going on for many months. They like another cry for help and wait for the next one.
—... Their whole class is like this. What should we do?
— Work with the class. But few teachers monitor children's relationships, let alone have enough to view their social media pages... I recently saw a teacher comment on the Internet. He studied the students' VKontakte pages and was horrified, after which he started working closely with them and his parents. We should follow his example. We need to create a culture of communication on the Internet and create psychological services on social networks.
— I heard that a group of psychologists will be created to identify teenagers' suicidal social media pages.
— It is planned to create a working group under the Ministry of Education, but work has not yet begun. It is necessary to strengthen the work of school psychologists throughout Russia and improve their skills in preventing suicide risks, including on the Internet.
— How likely is it that the threat to beat and film on camera will lead to a real beating?
— Fortunately, the probability is low. The distance between words and actions is large. But the threat itself is a traumatic factor and makes the child live in fear.
— Are Alina, Lesha, Yana and Lena a lost generation?
— No, they are a new generation and still unsolved. And we should strive to recognize them and protect them. We will definitely look after Alina and Lesha online. But there are many such VKontakte pages. On the Internet, the most experienced child users are the best at dealing with dangers: they know how to block the offender's page and change their privacy settings. But there are actually few of them. It's a myth that kids know everything themselves. It's not true. They are in dire need of a good education related to information and communication technologies. The risks and threats on the Internet are as real as on the street, where a child is at risk of being run over by a car or run into bullies. We don't prohibit walking on the streets, but teach you how to cross the road on a green light and not talk to strangers. Therefore, parents should also help their children learn the rules of conduct on the Internet. And be their friends not only in real life, but also in virtual life.
Golding's novel Lord of the Flies features the head of a dead pig placed on a stake by child hunters, a symbol of an animal sitting in any child's soul. In “The Lord”, children on the island are eventually found by adults from the Navy. The end is encouraging, but not that it's definitely happy: by that time, the children had already killed the fat boy Piggy — he had been thrown off a cliff.
Everyone in the 7th grade of school N in Dzerzhinsk is still alive.
Russian Reporter No. 21_2012.
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