Bullying not confined to the cyber schoolyard
Wed 14 May 2008
Lynne Green, Creative Writing
Bullies used to find their victims in the schoolyard, but now they are likely to lurk in cyberspace, harassing victims via email and text messages.
Children developed many avenues for communication, thanks to record levels of ownership of mobile phones and personal computers.
Unfortunately, the nature of some communication was negative, inciting cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying was the use of electronic media to convey insults and threats, to actively exclude or ostracise the victim, to post embarrassing pictures of the victim, or to utilise identity theft to denigrate the victim.
Queensland University of Technology education faculty psychologist Marilyn Campbell supplied another definition for The Courier Mail.
Dr Campbell defined cyberbullying as “wilful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text”.
Young people spent a lot of time on the internet, and it wasn’t uncommon for teenagers to spend five to six hours a day online.
The ABC reported on statistics from Adelaide's Flinders University.
The research, published in 2006, showed that 62 per cent of teenagers said they need professional help with their internet habit, 56 per cent said their parents showed no interest in the problem or their online activities and 30 per cent of users said they were becoming addicted to the internet.
The virtual worlds of the internet were a large part of the lives of these children and teenagers.
This provided bullies with easy access to their victims.
The same ABC article reported on a recent US survey into the incidence of cyberbullying.
After interviewing 1500 teenagers, it was found that 33 per cent had been victimized by cyberbullying, while 36 per cent of the children had witnessed the cyberbullying of peers and were too frightened to report the bullying, in case they were the next victim.
The ABC reported on a similar Australian survey of 500 teenagers by the Queensland University of Technology, which found that 5 per cent of the teenagers admitted to bullying other children, preferring to use mobile phones and computers over face-to-face encounters.
The Courier Mail listed statistics compiled by Dr Michael Carr-Gregg in a survey for the Girlfriend magazine.
Dr Carr-Gregg found cyberbullying had occurred to 42 per cent of 1600 children aged between 10 and 15 years.
These reports gave some indication of how widespread the problem was within the community of the schoolyard.
However, cyberbullying was a crime hard to define or record.
Many instances of cyberbullying were unreported by the victims, too embarrassed or too frightened to say anything to their parents and teachers.
The victims of cyberbullying weren’t just children either.
As this form of intimidation gained popularity, teachers and celebrities frequently became targets.
RedOrbit and the Boston Herald reported about students who had taken to posting unflattering pictures and videos of teachers on MySpace, Facebook, or YouTube, accompanied by insulting or threatening text messages.
The students had used their cell phones to photograph or videotape their victims, using the same methods of intimidation they used with other students.
Combating cyberbullying
Queensland University of Technology lecturer Marilyn Campbell wrote a detailed report on cyberbullying.
Dr Campbell listed four methods for the prevention of cyberbullying: raising awareness of the incidence of cyberbullying; whole school policies for individual schools; adult supervision - by parents and teachers - of children when they are using computers; and social and curriculum educational programs.
Dr Campbell saw these methods as equivalent to successful methods of preventing face-to-face bullying.
These methods were being put into practice.
Dr Carr-Gregg was working with Queensland Catholic school authorities to develop policies and guidelines for online safety, The Courier Mail reported.
The ABC said the Queensland Council of Parents and Citizens Associations held an open forum to educate parents on technology's role in cyberbullying.
There were also websites set up to specifically assist Australian children who were experiencing bullying.
There was http://www.bullyingnoway.com.au/, which aimed to provide “learning environments where every student and school community member is safe, supported, respected, valued — and free from bullying, violence, harassment and discrimination”.
Education Queensland administered the website on behalf of the Australian Education Authorities.
The Australian Government also ran NetAlert, which provided advice and free internet content filters.
Other countries had similar governmental and private programs in place.
One program, the Columbia University News Service website, used superheroes in role-plays to educate children about cyberbullying.
Britain and the US also had multiple websites dedicated to giving assistance and advice to the victims and the perpetrators of cyberbullying.
Education was the key to fighting this social phenomenon.
Cyberbullying only worked when a child or teenager felt helpless and alone.
Giving the community the tools to fight this problem was the best way to prevent this type of bullying from occurring.
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