Technology’s growing ubiquity in people’s lives, particularly those of younger people, has all sorts of effects. At Tuesday night’s Havre School Board meeting, Superintendent Andy Carlson and Jackie Rygg, Havre Middle School’s technology coordinator, spoke to the board about one increasingly negative effect — cyberbullying.

“I’m not coming to you with a bunch of answers or ways to go, ” Carlson said. “I just want to raise an awareness about this growing problem. ”

Carlson said that the majority of issues that he sees come across his desk every day involve some kind of cyberbullying. He added that it covers a broad swath of media, including texting and social networking websites like Facebook or Myspace.

Cyberbullying involves young people using social media to antagonize or threaten other young people.

“It’s not necessarily happening in schools, but it definitely affects them, creating classroom situations, ” Carlson said.

Rygg showed a compilation of videos about online security and how to help kids understand or fight cyberbullying.

She provided some statistics about kids and their, mostly unauthorized, social network use. She said Facebook has more than 20 million users under 18-years old. A third of those are under 13, which is against federal law. More than 3 million of those are under 10.

“Parents need to get a little more involved, ” Rygg said. “They don’t like it, but talk about online safety. ”

Carlson said that this is a big problem for the districts, too big for them to solve on their own.

“This is not a problem we can solve on our own, ” Carlson said. “We need to engage the community on this. We know where this problem can lead.”