Humiliation and gossip are weapons of the cyber-bully
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THE school playground bully used to be big, strong and threatening. He or she was often easy to identify by the body language and the air of menace. Most kids tried to give such a person a very wide berth. Things are not so simple now. The playground bully has gone digital. 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.
Head 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.
The problem is just as bad in America as it is here. 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.
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.
Some cyber-bullies post victims’ photos, or even paste victims’ faces on nude bodies.
The internet makes life easy for those who want to cause emotional harm to others. Electronic bullies can remain virtually anonymous using temporary e-mail accounts, false names in internet chatrooms, instant messaging programs, and mobile phone text messaging to mask their identity. There are even examples of school pupils bullying teachers. Hiding behind assumed names, the pupils can make up lies about a teacher they dislike and create a great deal of personal distress.
It may be argued that parents should exercise more supervision over what their children are doing. The problem is that teenagers usually know more about computers and mobile phones than their parents and are therefore able to operate the technologies without worry or concern that a probing parent will discover their experience with bullying, whether as a victim or offender.
What this illustrates is the double nature of new technology. For instance, mobile phones can make children safer. Parents are glad that such a small, portable instrument can give their children a means of keeping in touch. Youngsters can phone home to tell their parents they’ll be home a little later. But the very same mobile phone can be used to send bullying texts to others.
Home computers and laptops can have safeguards built into them to prevent youngsters accessing unsuitable sites and internet chatrooms, but regulating their use of mobile phones is far more difficult. And as the technology and access to new services improves, it becomes impossible for many parents to keep track of how phones are being used or misused.
There have been instances of what is known as “happy slapping”, where innocent victims are attacked at random and footage shot on mobile phone cameras and circulated for the amusement of others. What kind of amoral society are we becoming when children are doing such things?
In one Scottish school, footage of a 15-year-old boy punching the headmaster was circulated to other pupils. The attack happened soon after the Educational Institute of Scotland distributed guidance packs to staff following a rise in assaults filmed on phones in playgrounds.
We seem to have become a more brutalised and brutalising society. Children copy what they see in films or on television. Mobile technology makes it easier for youngsters to inflict pain, humiliation and misery on other children they dislike. Those who are tormented sometimes develop eating disorders and depression. Some engage in self-harm, and even consider suicide.
The government is considering taking action against offensive material being placed on sites like YouTube, but legislating against such behaviour is very difficult, especially as “advances” in new technology come thick and fast.
Governments can do only so much in the way of legislation. What we are witnessing is a crisis of values, in which many parents opt out of responsibility for guiding their offspring. Bewildering new technologies make life ever more difficult for hard-pressed parents.
In the meantime, vulnerable children look at the latest text message on their mobile phone, and cry.
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