Beaten up in cyberspace
Published: Aug 25, 2010 02:51 Updated: Aug 25, 2010 02:52
According to the “Stop Bullying Now” Campaign (www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov) “Bullying is aggressive behavior that is intentional and involves an imbalance of power or strength. Usually, it is repeated over time.” In the past, children and teenagers have been tormented by physical and verbal bullying — and those ugly behaviors are still common, especially at school and on the playground. But now technology has given bullies new ways to cause hurt.
The article, “Cyberbullying: Its nature and impact in secondary school pupils,” in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry defines cyberbullying or electronic bullying as “an aggressive, intentional act carried out by a group or individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time against a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself.” Cyberbullying can involve abusive e-mails, text messages and even postings to social networking sites. It has the potential to do real and lasting harm — even to the point of children in despair committing suicide to escape their online tormentors.
Reports of cyberbullying are increasing. During the last academic year, Arab News learned of numerous incidents of cyberbullying at schools in Saudi Arabia. As students in the Kingdom access the Internet in greater numbers and their use of mobile devices grows, more children and teens are becoming victims of this negative behavior.
Students often use technology away from a school’s campus to engage in cyberbullying. However, since the bullying generally involves classmates, schools can play a strong role in discouraging this abuse. A few schools in Saudi Arabia have already developed policies in regards to cyberbullying, not as a reaction to any specific incident, but rather as a means of defining and deterring this aggression.
“ISG schools take cyberbullying seriously. With the age of social networking sites, we need to be able to protect our students as much as possible,” said Norma Hudson, superintendent, International Schools Group (ISG) in the Eastern Province. “A few years ago, our harassment policy for students was revised and approved by the Board of Trustees to include cyberbullying. Our revised policy indicates that if a student is subject to any form of harassment or defamation of character by any means, including electronic, appropriate steps will be taken to assess the incident. Those steps would determine if the harassment took place under ISG jurisdiction. If so, and the result is that a student is found guilty of harassment, then he or she may be subject to suspension or expulsion.”
Hudson explained the ISG policy further, “So that there is a clear understanding of what harassment means, we use an operational definition of ‘harassment is any inappropriate conduct or actions which have the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive educational environment; unreasonably interfering with an individual’s educational performance, or affecting an individual’s educational opportunities.’ We also expanded our definition to indicate that ‘defamation of character is a statement made about an individual which intentionally damages his/her reputation.’”
According to Hudson, the best way to prevent cyberbullying on campus is through the education of students, parents and school staff. Every ISG school (www.isgdh.org) takes steps to discuss cyberbullying and its ramifications with students. Some of these steps include counseling sessions regarding cyberbullying and discussions within the technology class. Additionally, older students attending ISG schools must sign a “Technology Acceptable Use Policy” regarding computer and Internet usage at any ISG school. Hudson recommends that teachers and school administrators read “The Bullying Prevention Handbook,” by John Hoover and Ronald Oliver which ISG keeps in its professional development library. The title is available for purchase through many online bookstores.
A major effort to fight cyberbullying has just been launched by ebrary, which is subsidizing a collection of open access e-books on cyberbullying. Available free through http://site.ebrary.com/lib/cyberbullying, ebrary’s CyberBullying Searchable Information Center includes such titles as “Click, Click, Who’s Really There?: Protect Your Family from Online Predators, Pedophiles, Privacy Loss and More,” “Bullying Prevention and Intervention: Realistic Strategies for Schools,” and “Keep Your Kids Safe on the Internet.”
Free resources from a major campaign to stop bullying, with special emphasis on cyberbullying, are available through www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov. This website discusses bullying and cyberbullying in depth. It provides many types of multimedia resources that will be attractive to young people to help make them aware of the issues surrounding bullying and cyberbullying. There is even a cartoon webisode which focuses on cyberbullying and can provide a platform for parents to open this important topic with their children. The site’s section on cyberbullying provides a checklist of what parents should do if their child is being attacked, including how to approach school and other authorities to halt the bullying.
Cyberbullying involves harassment, humiliation and embarrassment and adults need to help children and teenagers who are being abused online. Cyberbullying can lead to anxiety, depression, school absences, low self esteem and health problems. Attacks can occur round the clock and children can feel that they aren’t safe anywhere.
Educators may be better able to observe students who are being affected by cyberbullying, since the abuse is often hidden from parents. Not only must schools notify the parents of the victims of this abuse, but they must also work with the parents of the bullies to stop this aggressive behavior. Youngsters who are bullies in the virtual world are often real world abusers, too. Bringing an end to bullying can help both bullies and their victims lead happier, more successful lives.
Comments
DAVID PRENTICE
Aug 25, 2010 14:39
Report abuseThey still use Facebook as normal but protect your privacy, by CLOAKing those parts of messages to be kept private. Neither Facebook nor its advertising partners can read the contents of those messages.
Pick a keyword, select the Facebook message you want to keep private, CLOAK it and send. Only people you've shared your keyword with can then read that message..
MIRIAM
Aug 26, 2010 20:30
Report abuse