As the pandemic rages on, more and more teens are spending longer hours online. Writing papers, participating in virtual classrooms, visiting chat boards to comment on projects and assignments… it begs the question: how has virtual learning impacted teen dating violence?
February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. An awareness month dedicated to the unique aspects of teen DV and its impacts on teens, TDVAM is a way for advocates, policymakers and those involved in the justice field to show the general public just how influential teen dating violence is. Teens who experience dating violence can suffer from poor academic performance, lose social skills and have long-lasting mental health issues.
As a reminder, teens cannot experience domestic violence from an intimate partner. This is because they are underage - domestic violence specifically refers to familial units. The two terms are typically grouped together, though. You’ll often see it written as ‘domestic violence/dating violence’. While teens can experience domestic violence from a parent or guardian, teens in relationships do not fall under the umbrella of domestic. That’s also part of the reason the DV advocacy field has been petitioning so hard for the usage of IPV - intimate partner violence - rather than keeping domestic violence and dating violence as separate categories!
There’s been a lot of discussion of how DV has increased as a result of the pandemic (I would argue that line of logic is wrong, so I’m not linking that source here because I find it lacking credibility), but not much has been said about teens and dating violence. This is another reason why Teen DV Month is so important - teens are often left out of the discussion when it comes to intimate partner violence. Even though the consequences of teen dating violence are very real, their voices for so long were never included.
While the logical assumption might be to assert that teens will experience less dating violence because they’re not seeing their peers in classes and staying home because extracurriculars are decreased, that line of thinking excludes one large factor:
The internet.
You see, kids are seeing their peers. They’re in virtual learning platforms, meeting online to work on group projects, and they’re still as active on social media as ever. This continued online presence indicates that teens have more chances to experience verbal, emotional and even sexual abuse from their intimate partners. The options are endless - teen abusers can still track their partners, pester them endlessly through text or online messaging apps to distract them from their work or they can send them nude photos or they can even threaten to share ones they’ve been sent to their classmates, all without being in person.
Just because teens aren’t seeing each other in-person doesn’t mean they aren’t experiencing dating violence. As we know, the reason abusers abuse is because of a desire for power and control. For many teens, this loss of in-person contact or uncertainty has allowed them to increase their abuse, but through digital means.
What does digital abuse in a Teen DV situation look like during the pandemic?
That’s the question of the century. Digital abuse isn’t new - cyberstalking was first prosecuted in California in the late 1990s. However, every day abusers are finding new ways to turn ordinary tech advances into avenues to carry out abuse. With the pandemic currently in place, what here are some ways teen abusers might exercise power and control over their victims:
Persistent texting, even when their partner is supposed to be paying attention to a virtual class lecture
Tracking their partner’s location through the Snapchat map
Creating fake accounts to try and ‘catch’ their partner cheating on them or interacting with others online that they don’t want them to
Constantly requesting nude photos or sending their partner nude photos
Threatening to release nude photos during online lectures or to their partner’s classmates through text or social media
Gaslighting their partner through text to try and use their own words ‘against’ them
Constantly calling their partner, even at inopportune times of day (ie, late at night when they should be sleeping)
Threatening to visit their partner in person and hurt them, or give them/their family members Covid
Sending them video messages claiming they’re going to die by suicide unless their partner does something for them or promises them something
Many of these are things abusers would do even before the pandemic. However, as virtual learning takes precedent, many students are still experiencing these forms of abuse, or even experiencing them during their virtual learning. Some online platforms, such as Zoom, allow you to message specific people during your video call. For some teens, if they are in a class with their abuser, they might receive persistent messages from them through that specific chat box. While schools screen for blatant threats and inappropriate language, there probably wouldn’t be a flag for a student constantly messaging another ‘Hey’ or ‘Why aren’t you answering’ or ‘Check your phone’ or ‘You need to talk to me.’ If the two students carry on a conversation because the one is worried the situation will escalate if they don’t respond, the teacher or school might even think they aren’t paying attention to the teacher and instead punish the victim for responding. All of this can create a very toxic and dangerous environment for teens, especially when they’re already struggling through the stress of a pandemic.
The impacts of virtual learning on Teen Dating Violence might appear to be surface-level, but only time will tell the true depths of how migrating from school to home has actually affected teens and their experiences with dating violence.