With the advent of new communication technologies has come a whole new host of online forms of aggression, abuse and harassment. For most adults, bullying was something we traditionally had experienced only face-to-face on the playgrounds of our schools. Children of the i-Generation, however, face the prospect of experiencing threatening behavior everywhere they go.
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Bullying, of course, is considered aggressive behavior that is intentional and involves an imbalance of power or strength. Usually, it is repeated over time. Traditionally, bullying has involved actions such as hitting or punching (physical bullying), teasing or name-calling (verbal bullying), or intimidation through gestures or social exclusion.
Cyberbullying, which is sometimes referred to as online social cruelty or electronic bullying, involves sending mean, vulgar, or threatening messages or images via e-mail, instant messaging and text messaging, posting sensitive, private information on the web about another person, pretending to be someone else online or in chat rooms in order to make that person look bad, and/or intentionally excluding someone from an online group. The most common way in which children reported being cyberbullied was through instant messaging.
Cyberbullying may differ from more “traditional” forms of bullying in a number of ways (Willard, 2005). For example, cyberbullying can occur any time of the day or night, cyberbullying messages and images can be distributed quickly to a very wide audience and children can be anonymous when cyberbullying, which makes it difficult (and sometimes impossible) to trace.
- 36% of 12-17-year-olds and 17% of 6-11 year-olds reported that someone said threatening or embarrassing things about them through e-mail, instant messages, web sites, chat rooms, or text messages (Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, 2006).
- 62% of students in grades 6-8 said that they had been cyberbullied by another student at school, and 46% had been cyberbullied by a friend and 55% didn't know who had cyberbullied them (Kowalski et al., 2005).
- 18% of students in grades 6-8 said they had been cyberbullied at least once in the last couple of months; and 6% said it had happened to them 2 or more times (Kowalski et al., 2005).
Stunning numbers indeed. So how can school administrators, students and parents deal with these new online forms of harassment? Certainly installing parental control software and keeping your computer in viewable places are sound recommendations, but, as a parent, you can’t be everywhere.
To combat this behavior, children need a way to reach out, communicate and report instances of cyberbullying with adults and counselors. AnComm’s ‘Talk About’ anonymous online and text based reporting service gives students the means to communicate directly without fear of retribution or embarrassment. Being an anonymous online service as well, gives children a familiar and comfortable form to to bring issues of cyberbullying to the attention of school officials.
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