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Yale Researcher Combat Cyber Bullying

School-aged bullies don’t just lurk in hallways and playgrounds. Researchers are finding teenage harassment online has an impact in the real world. “Now we have...

School-aged bullies don’t just lurk in hallways and playgrounds.

Researchers are finding teenage harassment online has an impact in the real world.

“Now we have something that can spread to hundreds of people if not thousands with the click of a button,” noted Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.

Brackett is working with Facebook to develop anti-bullying tools for users aged 13 to 16.

“There’s a system now where they can literally say this post is a problem or this photo is a problem and you click it and it takes you  through a guided flow to help you figure out the best way to resolve the problem.”

Once teens tell Facebook a post is problematic, the site offers positive suggestions on how to handle the situation, “and what were showing is that kids are being more pro-social,” says Brackett. Research indicates participants “are using the pre-populated kinder safer messages.”

The anti-bullying messages are an automatic feature for any Facebook user between the target ages.

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