Cyber Bullying
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Cyber Bullying
Introduction
With today’s technology bullying has become easier then ever; the children and youth of this generation do not even need to have personal confrontation. Cyber bullying can be defined as any communication posted or sent by a minor online, by instant messenger, e-mail, website, diary site, online profile, interactive game, handheld device, cell phone or other interactive device that is intended to frighten, embarrass, harass or otherwise target another minor. Cyber bullying is disturbingly common among Canadian teens. Cyber-Bullying: Our Kids’ New Reality is a survey that was conducted from December 2006 — January 2007 by the members of Kids Help Phone that had over 2500 respondents. More than 70 per cent of respondents to the survey reported that they have been bullied online, while 44 per cent said they have bullied someone online. At least 38 percent reported having experienced cyber-bullying within the last three months. Of the methods used, 77 percent reported being bullied by instant messaging, 37 per cent by e-mail and 31 per cent on social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook. When bullied online, 43 per cent said they did nothing, 32 per cent confronted the person who bullied them, and 27 per cent told a friend. Although most cyber bullying cases go unreported, police departments take action in trying to prevent it. Because many people are afraid to come to the police about an online problem, the police go to great lengths to find the problems themselves online. A large number of youth and their parents think that cyber bullying is not a big enough deal to cause problems. However, it has been proven that a victim of this type of bullying can be lead to serious disorders for the future including suicide. When one becomes a victim of cyber bullying, they are a victim for life. Though the bullying itself may go away, the fear, the hurt, and the memories scar the victim forever.
Findings
Bullying
In schools across Canada minors are bullied every single day. Bullying has escaladed from the schoolyard to the classroom in previous years and from the school to the home via cyberspace today. “Cyber bullying” is when a child, preteen or teenager is bullied, harassed, humiliated, threatened, embarrassed, or targeted in someway by another child, preteen, or teenager through the use of internet, cell phones and other forms of technology. In order to have the title of cyber bullying, the intent must be to cause emotional distress, and there must be no legitimate purpose for the communication. It has to have a minor on both sides, or at least have been instigated by a minor against another minor. Once an adult becomes involved it is no longer considered cyber bullying; it is then considered cyber harassment or cyber stalking.
The Internet has created a whole new world of social communications for young people who are using e-mail, Web sites, instant messaging, chat rooms and text messaging to stay in touch with friends and make new ones. While most communications are positive, more and more kids are using these social tools to intimidate others.
Todays young Internet users have created an interactive world away from adult knowledge and supervision. Bullies tend to harass others when parents, or adult authorities are not around, therefore the Internet is the perfect tool for reaching others anywhere, any time while remaining anonymous. This means for many children, home is no longer a place of comfort and safety. Being anonymous during online communications means kids feel freer and able to do things that they would never do in the real world. Media Awareness Network research from 2005 shows that 60 per cent of students pretend to be someone else when they are online. Of those, 17 per cent do so because they want to “act mean to people and get away with it”. Even if they can be identified online, young people can accuse someone else of using their screen name. They dont have to own their actions, and if a person cant be identified with an action, fear of punishment is diminished (Young Canadians in a Wired World Survey 2005). Technology can also affect a young persons ethical behavior because it doesnt provide tangible feedback about the consequences of actions on others. This lack of feedback minimizes feelings of empathy or remorse. Young people say things online that they would never say face-to-face because they feel removed from the action and the victim.
There are several ways that young people bully others online. They send e-mails or instant messages containing insults or threats directly to a person. They may also spread hateful, sexual, and/or pejorative comments about a person through e-mail, instant messaging or postings on Web sites and online blogs.
An increasing number of kids are being bullied by text messages through their cell phones. These phones are challenging the ability of adults to monitor and guide children because, unlike a computer placed in a public area of a home, school or library, mobiles are personal, private, connected – and always accessible. Kids tend to keep their phones on at all times, meaning bullies can harass victims at school or even in their own rooms. Built-in digital cameras in cell phones are adding a new dimension to the problem. In one case students used a camera-enabled cell phone to take a photo of an overweight classmate in the shower after gym. The picture was distributed throughout the school e-mail list within minutes
Cyber bullying is the easiest method to use. When a bully is bullying in the cyber world rather than the real world they are able to say what they really want. When bullying online, the bully feels superior and “cooler then his/her victim.
Police Concerns about Cyber Bullying
No behaviors in cyberspace are completely anonymous. Every instance of Internet access creates an Internet Protocol address or “electronic fingerprint” which can be traced by authorities. However, it can still be difficult to prove cyber bullying. The police may be able to trace the source of harassing messages but the bully can simply deny involvement and claim that someone else used their computer. Bullies can also challenge authorities with arguments of freedom of speech and intellectual property. According to Jeffrey Shallit, vice president of Electronic Frontier Canada, a group founded to protect the rights and freedoms of people using information technology, “Freedom of speech protects the thoughts we hate just as much as the thoughts we like.”
Most cases of cyber bullying go unreported because victims are afraid the bully