People are becoming comfortable with expressing their feelings online. Sending affectionate e-mail or an online greeting card is a fun way to show you care. Reassuring a distant friend that he or she is valued is a wonderful way to make use of a supportive social network. But as the ways and means of communicating online expand, the opportunity for bullies expands. Just as you can show positive emotions and support for others online, you can show negative and destructive emotions, sometimes in very hurtful and public ways. "Bullying is as old as the hills, and with young people it's generally linked to stuff at school. Many of us experienced it at some point but when I was a kid, I knew that once I got home and closed the street door behind me, I had a sanctuary. The bullying stayed outside. With new technologies there now is no 'outside' and that can make the bullying even more pernicious and harder to deal with," says John Carr, Chair of the U.K.'s Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety, as well as the New Technology Adviser to NCH (National Children's Home), England's leading children's charity, and an adviser to the European Union's Safer Internet Programme. Find Out More The NCH maintains a Web site at www.stoptextbully.com that offers excellent advice about dealing with cyberbullying. Why People Bully OnlineOnline bullying and harassment is a serious problem around the world. Though the full impact is difficult to measure because of under-reporting, the most recently published research from NCH (2001) indicates that one in four children in the United Kingdom was the victim of online bullying in that year. The Internet appeals to stalkers and bullies because it offers a certain amount of anonymity. A bully can hide behind temporary e-mail accounts or nicknames in chat rooms or instant messaging programs. When you can hide your identity from your victim or hurl insults from a distance, there is no fear of retaliation. Though the traditional bully might be physically strong, cyberbullies can be physically weak or even younger than their victims, but still cause tremendous psychological pain. Since physical size is no longer required to become an aggressor, and with virtually unlimited access to potential targets, the Internet provides a sort of "equal opportunity offender" environment that allows anyone to act on their feelings.
Think About It A study of 1,500 Internet-using adolescents in the United States found that over one-third reported being victimized online and over 16 percent admitted to cyberbullying others. Notably, less than 15 percent of victims told an adult about the incident (Hinduja and Patchin, research, fall 2005, currently under peer review). A Growing ThreatCyberharassment is growing, and not just among young people. In fact, the prevalence of online bullying has now surpassed traditional bullying offline. Whether such attacks represent a personal vendetta between two adults, the stalking behavior of a complete stranger, or teens ganging up on another teen, these campaigns have at times gone so far that their victims have sought psychiatric treatment or been pushed over the edge to suicide. The schoolyard bully that kids once faced at recess for 20 minutes a day seems tame compared with the online bully who can harass victims through many media 24 hours a day. Because electronic forums are largely unsupervised, and personal messages are private, those in authority are hard pressed to spot or prevent this harassment. And victims, ashamed of their "weakness," or afraid of further reprisals, are often reluctant to report the abuse. Another problem is the increasingly common presence of computers in the private environments of adolescent bedrooms. Teenagers often know more about computers and cellular phones than their parents and are therefore able to operate these technologies without worrying that a probing parent will discover their experience with bullying (whether as a victim or an offender). In a similar vein, the inseparability of a cellular phone from its owner makes that person a perpetual possible target for victimization. The Impact of Bullying and HarrassmentBullying can have serious physical and mental health consequences, which are outlined in Table 16-1. (The information in Tables 16-1 and 16-2 is taken from www.womedia.org/lgr_statistics_print.htm and is specific to the United States.)
Bullying takes a tremendous and often long-lasting toll on the lives of the victims and of bystanders (see Table 16-2). For some parents of bullies, there is a strong tendency to minimize or dismiss the behavior of their child. They consider such behavior as being "just a phase," or say that "kids will be kids." Some consider that kids will just work out confrontations among themselves. Often this viewpoint is accompanied by the attitude that the victim should "toughen up." Not only does this point of view utterly disregard the tremendous damage done to victims, it also fails to recognize the very dangerous path bullies themselves walk. Unchecked bullying can escalate to more serious violence. |