In School Climate 2.0, a fascinating new book that brilliantly examines everything from sexting to cyberbullying, Sameer Hinduja shares how as a student he “got the living crap beat out of him.”

Hinduja is an internationally respected authority, serving on multiple prestigious advisory boards, all in an effort to raise Internet safety awareness. Along with Justin W. Patchin, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, he directs the Cyberbullying Research Center.

Hinduja and Patchin, whom he coauthored the book with, have really done their homework, completing “seven formal independent studies involving over 12,000 students from over 80 middle and high schools from different regions of the United States.”

With all the media hype over the prevalence of cyberbullying, I was especially surprised by one of Hinduja’s key findings. Even with the explosion of technology, he has not seen a rampant increase in bullying, online or offline.

“It’s not affecting a majority of kids, it’s affecting a minority of kids,” Hinduja says, noting that it’s very important to avoid trivializing or dismissing legitimate experiences.

Hinduja and Patchin offer detailed advice on how schools and communities can adopt best practices. They strive to make adults feel encouraged and empowered, rather than discouraged and helpless, when in fact technological misuse occurs.

During our talk, I couldn’t let go of how the media has mislead the public into believing that cyberbullying has reached pandemic proportions.

“I would say that the media likes to focus in a lot of these suicides that have happened because of cyberbullying,” Hinduja says. “At least that’s how they attempt to paint it, even though first off, the suicides that do happen, they’re so rare—they’re incredibly, incredibly rare.”

Hinduja and other experts have studied such cases, which almost always tend to have more serious underlying issues: “There’s not direct relationship between bullied online and then committing suicide,” he says.

I’ll leave it to you to more closely analyze Hinduja’s data, which he breaks down and makes incredibly easy to understand. I also give him credit for comparing his numbers to similar studies, allowing the reader to draw more solid conclusions.

Speaking with Hinduja reminded me of my own bully, who tormented me on a daily basis for reasons I still don’t understand. He pulled my hair, pushed me on the ground, stole my lunch and acted like a complete jerk. Only 8 or 9 at the time, I remember wishing I could grow big enough to fight back. I never did.

All the same, Hinduja made me think.

Maybe my bully faced serious difficulties at home. Perhaps acting out was the only way he knew how to deal. But what if a teacher had really tried to help him, rather than punish him by making him sweep the floor or sit in the corner?

“We need to remember that hurt people hurt people, and understand that they’re struggling with their own stuff,” he says. “And how can we rally around them? How can we meet their specific needs, and if we do maybe they will stop coping in a negative way, in a maladaptive way and then hurt other people with their words and actions.”

I was also intrigued by Hinduja’s take on sexting, especially because this act seems to be a bit more common than bullying.

“We found that 12.9 percent of youth aged 11–18 had received a naked or seminaked image of someone from their school,” Hinduja writes. “Moreover, 7.7 percent admitted that they had sent a naked or seminaked image of themselves to someone else from their school.”

These numbers aren’t as high as I had previously thought, but they still worry me. I don’t want any teenager sending or receiving such images. As a teacher, it’s my duty to engage students about what devices are out there and how they are using them. Adults must create an environment where students feel comfortable talking about these issues.

I’m so glad that Hinduja agrees.

“I really feel that I would love for adults to take the time to learn about new devices,” he says. “But even if they don’t, take time in class to bring it up. The teacher doesn’t have to fully know what’s going on, but they can allow the kids to carry the conversation.”

Hinduja also supports limiting Internet restrictions, especially since students can access any content on their cell phones: “Overall, my personal opinion is that I would love to see more open schools. Honestly, I just feel like we should trust kids and we should empower them to use technology wisely and give them the benefit of the doubt that they are going to use it well, and safely, and appropriately.”

Here again, I couldn’t agree more—especially with Hinduja’s recent finding.

“The vast majority of adolescents use technology safely and responsibly the vast majority of the time,” he writes.

Thanks to Hinduja and experts like him, let’s stop pretending that most students would abuse technology if granted more access to it at school.

This simply isn’t true, especially with such credible data pointing to the contrary.

Purchase your copy of School Climate 2.0 by clicking here.