Cyberbullying On the Rise
This is no doubt the new epidemic. Unfortunately, the participants don’t know just how serious their crimes are. They are too young to understand a world outside of the Internet, and how the virtual world can have damaging results in the real one.
It’s important that parents monitor child Internet use not just for the scary predators – but more so for the CyberBullying. Whether your child is a victim and not telling you or they are – worse yet – the bully and acting innocent, this is a problem that parents MUST step in and correct NOW.
Monitoring software like our PC Pandora can play a vital role in monitoring Internet activity of your kids. With detailed snapshots of screen content, you’ll be able to see if they are involved in cyberbullying (on either side of the fence).
Below is a story from ABC in Boston that takes a look at this rising problem. I’d also like to give you this link here, Character makes the person…Has yours been tested?, where you can listen to a podcast from the CyberHoodWatch guys. Their guest, Amy, has a son who was a victim of cyberbullying… hear how it basically destroyed their lives.
BOSTON — Like their verbal counterparts, cyber names are not sticks and stones, but they are hurting many young Internet users, according to a 2007 survey of middle school and high school students.
In an Online Bullying and Predators Survey, 28 percent of teens and pre-teens, ages 11 to 19, said that they have been the victim of online bullying, or cyberbullying.
The National Crime Prevention Council describes cyberbullying as teens using the “Internet, cell phones, or other devices to send or post text or images to hurt or embarrass another person.”
The 2007 survey was conducted by the Kids/Teen Division of the Maine-based online safety organization Working To Halt Online Abuse. Founded in 2005, the division focuses on the needs of young people who have been victimized or taken advantage of on the Internet.
Jayne Hitchcock, president of WHOA, said cyberbullying is a major issue for young Internet users. Online communication — either through e-mail, chatting, text-messaging or other means — has become indispensable to the social lives of so many teens and pre-teens, she said.
“The Internet’s not going away,” Hitchcock said. “[Cyberbullying] has to be dealt with.”
Hitchcock said a recent rise in cyberbullying can be attributed to the increasing ease in which teens and preteens can connect to the Internet.
“I think cyberbullying is definitely on the rise due to the fact that a lot more kids and teens are not only online via their computers, but also via their cell phones,” Hitchcock said.
The WHOA survey did not look at how participants connected, but some did say they were bullied via text message.
The participants — 202 females and 193 males from three schools in Maine — were asked a number of questions about their experiences with online bullying, including how they were bullied (via e-mail, chatroom, instant message or others), how they reacted and why, who did the bullying and whether the students themselves had ever bullied someone.
The survey did not report how many of each sex were victimized, but over half of the reported bullying was done by males.
Of those bullied, 65 percent said it was done through instant messaging, followed by e-mail, the Web site MySpace.com, chat rooms and online games.
Less than half of those bullied reported the abuse to authorities because bullying “wasn’t a big problem” or they “didn’t want to make a big deal of it.”
Still, some teens said they didn’t report the bullying because they were scared, they didn’t think anyone would believe them or they didn’t know how to report it.
More than half of all participants, whether bullied or not, said they had been contacted online by a stranger. Most replied to the stranger, and almost a third of them didn’t tell anyone about the contact.
The survey results show a need to educate teens and pre-teens about online safety, Hitchcock said.
“You have to learn how to take care of these cases before the situation escalates to a serious problem,” she said. “Police and schools don’t know how to deal with it.”
WHOA conducted the survey to help identify the areas of online-safety education that most need improvement. The responses suggest educators need to be “proactive, rather than reactive,” Hitchcock said, in teaching online safety.
Regardless of what the survey showed about cyberbullying, Hitchcock said she was “very pleased” with the net savvy displayed by the almost 400 young participants.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:49 PM
Somewhere along the way we’ve heard the phrase, “The pen is mightier than the sword” and “The tongue cuts deeper than a knife”. If words are what the pen writes and what tongues speak, imagine how devastating it is for a child to withstand the timeless abuse of his or her self image. Think of it in this way, “Grandma, how old were you when they did this to you”?
Maybe, the bully should think of it this way, “Grandma, why did you say that”? Or, “My Grandma was a cyberbully”.
Unfortunately, young minds are just that… young. Their concept of what they are doing and the permanency of what they are saying doesn’t register. Parents need to become aware of what their children are involved in on the Internet. Again, these are young minds, easily influenced, reacting in the moment to peer pressure. Talk about cyberbullying… at least let your child know you are aware of it and what it’s done to someone and how you would feel if it happened to them.
How do you stop cyberbullying? How does it affect your children? It’s like dealing with your computers and malware, we are always reactive, we need to be proactive. You and I, are the backbone of the Internet, and it’s our personal computers that make up 80% of the Internet. So, why are we reactive and why do we chase after the cybercriminals? Why not educate and empower all of us who dominate the Internet on how to be proactive and lock down and remove our computers from becoming tools to be misused by organized cybercriminals. We have the power to make a difference and effect change. The same applies to parents, we need to become proactive and be involved and aware of what our children are doing on the Internet.
Today’s 21st century parent has to be become a “Responsible CyberCitizen” and teach their children proper etiquette of the Internet. And the use of a good monitoring tool, like PC Pandora, is a recommended resource of a responsible cybercitizen.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:56 PM
There is a new website that is sociallly responsible for children. The website for parents is http://www.safewave.org.
On this website, you will find a link to http://www.iland5.com, the site for kids. Before a child can become a member, their school must verify the identification, thus keeping predators away. It is age appropriate, content monitored, secure, predator free, cyberbullying controled and best of all, it is free. In today’s world, this is needed. We should take every step to protect our children and this step is free. I encourage every parent to check it out and sign their kids up, I did and it sure does bring peace of mind.
http://www.safewave.org
http://www.iland5.com