Westbrook Center Schoolhouse Master Laurie Wood says the school'southward educatee cell phone policy is existence reviewed to curb cyberbullying and other misuses. Run a risk Viles / American Periodical

A video of two Westbrook Middle Schoolhouse students fighting and being egged on by classmates may prompt officials to limit prison cell phone use after it was shared widely on social media this month.

Main Laurie Forest confirmed that the fight earlier this month was based on something posted on social media. Other students used social media to provoke confrontation.

Students recorded the fight at recess and recorded themselves mocking it while it was happening, showing a "lack of empathy," Forest said.

The fight is only one example of the school'due south cell phone and social media problem, Woods said. Students are also cyberbullying and posting racist or homophobic remarks on popular sites like Snapchat.

When parents and family members saw the video of the fight they called the schoolhouse and many were outraged, Wood said. One call came from a relative in Florida who found the video online.

Outdoor recess was suspended for that grade level and a seminar was held to discuss the trouble.

"For us, it'southward twofold," Wood said. "It's the enormous lark potential of the telephone itself, and then information technology is used for social media, which is 90% of our bug."

Westbrook Center Schoolhouse serves grades 5-8. As of now, students in grades 7-eight may have their phones on them while at schoolhouse but are asked to limit their utilise to the first or finish of the day.

Students in grades five-6 are not immune to take their phones on them at all. There are similar restrictions at middle schools in Windham, South Portland and Portland.

Despite the restrictions, students still find ways to use their phones. Many teachers don't confiscate phones, Wood said, considering students need to communicate with their parents.

Staff is aware that students utilise a large number of online chatrooms where homophobia, racism and bullying are rampant, she said, oftentimes during school time.

"Social media traffic that we see is never positive," Woods said. "Anonymous pages are put upwardly with no indication of who posted it, often just posting embarrassing pictures or videos of kids, fifty-fifty of teachers. Often these things are also shared in individual conversation rooms."

Social media platforms such equally Snapchat make policing the upshot difficult because they let anonymous accounts and messages are automatically deleted, Woods said. However, a large number of racist or homophobic chats seen via screenshots are "breathtaking."

"When we go to practice an investigation, information technology's gone because it disappears, and students can't ever screenshot it because then people will know they told," Wood said. "We can only hold them accountable if it seems that the social media traffic indicated an unsafe situation at school."

When they do get useful information about social media misuse, schoolhouse officials "meet with students, talk with parents and practise consequences such every bit in-schoolhouse suspension, which has a stiff restorative ground," she said. "We might separate the students in classes, or we might keep them out of recess equally well."

The issue has caught the attending of the schoolhouse committee.

"I know that the WMS administrative team is working hard to get to the root of some of these issues and figure out the best way to support students that are struggling," School Committee Chairperson Sue Salisbury wrote in an email to the American Periodical. "This will be an ongoing word as we as a School Committee figure out the best way to support not but students only staff and families."

According to a Pew Inquiry Center study conducted in 2018, 95% of teens had access to a smartphone. That aforementioned study states that nearly 41% of teens used Snapchat and 52% used Instagram.

Psychologist and Dark-brown Academy Professor Jacqueline Nesi, who studies the role of social media in adolescents' mental wellness and development, cited a Mutual Sense Media report finding that "on average, teens are spending almost three hours per day using either social media or watching online videos."

That has long-term impacts on students' mental health, and can lead to depression or anxiety, Nesi said.

"We take pretty robust testify that cyberbullying is associated with a number of mental health difficulties among victims," Nesi said. "Of class, mental disease is almost e'er the outcome of a number of dissimilar factors both on and offline, but we do know that cyberbullying can represent a significant stressor."

Making matters worse is that social media is "constantly in your face," according to Sue Scheff, founder of Parents' Universal Resource Experts, Inc. and an author who has written extensively on the subject area.

"Years ago, a teen wanting to be mean used to pass nasty notes near a classmate, and information technology was usually bars to the school," Scheff wrote to the American Periodical in an email. "It would remain in the rumor mill for about a week or so at the most and and then be forgotten. At present, thanks to technology, it's magnified by a million."

Some Westbrook parents are worried, too.

Christina Fernald, the parent of a 7th-grader, said she ofttimes worries about her children'due south presence on social media and constant phone use. She said she'd back up a policy limiting all phone use in schools up to eighth grade.

"I do retrieve it's a problem," Fernald said. "I personally don't have (social media) but we take other family members who are on those and they go along an eye on my kids."

Nicole Axelsen said she opted to non give her middle schooler a phone, and that strict rules near cell telephone use "should be a acme priority," she said.

"It'south coupled with prophylactic," Axelsen said. "These two things go hand in mitt."

Scheff said she does not necessarily support limiting phone usage, but advocates for internet literacy classes and tweaks to parenting.

"This helps kids realize their deportment at a young age and pause earlier they post, to consider the consequences of their actions," Scheff said. "It might even start with implementing a smartphone contract with guidelines and boundaries."

Westbrook Center School includes digital literacy in its health curriculum but may wait at lamentatory it up on tiptop of future phone policy changes.

"It's a healthy review at this disquisitional fourth dimension in our culture but besides in our kids' lives," Wood said. "They've been through the pandemic. Their social relationships are more of import now."

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