Humiliation and gossip are weapons of the cyberbully - The Diigo Meta page

• 04 May 09
  

  Michael Wacker

  Researchers there estimate that between 9% and 34% of youth are victims of the cyber-bullies. And as many as one in five teenagers has bullied another youth using digital media, reports a special issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.

  cyberbullying internetsafety

• 28 Jul 08
  

  Karen McMillan

  internetsafety cyberbullying

• 25 Jul 08
  

  Anne Bubnic

  As more and more people have access to computers and mobile phones, a new risk to youngsters has begun to emerge. Electronic aggression, in the form of threatening text messages and the spread of online rumours on social networking sites, is a growing concern.

  ad4dcss social networking cyberbullying digital wellness school administrators cellphone

  • ead teachers are being advised to draw up new rules on mobile phone use amid a growing number of cases of what is now known as “cyber-bullying”. In many secondary schools, over 90% of bullying cases are through text messages or internet chatrooms. It is hoped that the rules about mobile phone use will protect children from abusive texts, stop phones going off in class and prevent mobiles being taken into exam halls.

     
  • Although the majority of kids who are harassed online aren’t physically bothered in person, the cyber-bully still takes a heavy emotional toll on his or her victims. Kids who are targeted online are more likely to get a detention or be suspended, skip school and experience emotional distress, the medical journal reports. Teenagers who receive rude or nasty comments via text messages are six times more likely to say they feel unsafe at school.
  • The problem is that bullying is still perceived by many educators and parents as a problem that involves physical contact. Most enforcement efforts focus on bullying in school classrooms, corridors and toilets. But given that 80% of adolescents use mobile phones or computers, “social interactions have increasingly moved from personal contact at school to virtual contact in the chatroom,'’ write Kirk R. Williams and Nancy G. Guerra, co-authors of one of the journal reports. “Internet bullying has emerged as a new and growing form of social cruelty.'’

  • Cyber-bullying tactics include humiliation, destructive messages, gossip, slander and other “virtual taunts” communicated through e-mail, instant messaging, chatrooms and blogs. The problem, of course, is what to do about it. While most schools do not allow pupils to use their mobiles in the school building, an outright ban is deemed unworkable. Advances in technology are throwing up new problems for teachers to deal with. Children use their phones to listen to music, tell the time or as a calculator.

     

    Cyber-bullies sometimes disclose victims' personal data on websites or forums, or may even attempt to assume the identity of their victim for the purpose of publishing material in their name that defames them or exposes them to ridicule.

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