How do you feel when these words are directed at you?. Do you feel angry? sad? or humiliated?.
These are just some of the words seen by a victim of cyber bullying. In fact, it can be considered as ‘soft’ as there are harsher methods of bullying on the internet. These methods include receiving threatening messages, having private emails or text messages forwarded to other people without consent, posting embarrassing pictures or photographs of themselves without permission, spreading rumors that are humiliating online and even stalking.
CYBER BULLYING
“Why do people bully others online?”. The main reason for that is the internet allows bullies to remain anonymous and it is harder to trace the bully online. Not only that, bullies will find it easier to be more vicious online as there is no physical contact. Photographs or rumors are also much easier to be forwarded or spread to a greater audience with the presence of emails, blogs and social websites. The victims of cyber-bullying are mainly teenagers.
WHY ARE TEENAGERS THE TARGET OF CYBER-BULLYING ?
I will be focusing on teenagers and cyber-bullying on this blog as teenagers are the main victims of cyber-bullying. According to a study done by “Opinion Research Corporation for Fight Crime: Invest in Kids”, 1 in 3 teenagers in the U.S have been a victim of cyber bullying. A reason why teenagers are frequently targeted by cyber bullies is due to their immaturity and self-conscious.
Teenagers often fall prey to scams as they are unsure of the rights and wrongs on the net. They also take a lot of notice on their image. This is the main reason why we see many deaths from teenagers committing suicide due to cyber-bullying. Unlike adults, a teenager would feel very depressed and emotional whenever they are thrown with the words such as ugly or fat. They also lack the ability to express their problems with others, making the situation much dire.
HOW ARE TEENAGERS BULLIED AND HOW DO THEY REACT?
Teenagers are often bullied through some of these methods.
Cyber-bullies:
• Pretend to be a victim’s friend and later trick the victim
• Trick the victim into revealing personal information
• Spread lies and rumors about a victim
• Post pictures that are personal or humiliating without the consent of the victim
• Spread and forward email or text messages that are personal to the public
HOW DO TEENAGERS REACT AFTER BECOMING A VICTIM OF CYBER-BULLYING?
There are many ways in which teenagers react after being a victim. Most would approach it in a positive way. This includes:
• Blocking all connection with the cyber-bully
• Deleting all messages that are connected with the cyber-bully without reading them
• Reporting the problem to website moderator or admin
• Sharing and talking to another person about the bully
A victim of cyber-bully experiences different types of emotions. Especially for teenagers, victims will usually feel angry, scared, depressed or humiliated. These emotions can sometimes drive them into doing things such as cyber-bullying others, seeking revenge on the bully as well as avoiding contacts with friends and daily activities. The most severe of these reactions is suicide. A recent case of suicide due to cyber-bullying involves a girl, Megan Meier, aged 13. She committed suicide after being dumped by her online boyfriend, who apparently is a mother of her friend who is seeking revenge. The news can be found HERE
CYBER-BULLYING IN SINGAPORE.
Even though cases of cyber-bullying in Singapore are rare, it is undeniable that there are teen bullies and victims of cyber-bullies among us. In fact, just last month (December 08), a 16 year old girl was caught after she purposely created fake profile on popular social networking sites such as MySpace and Friendster to throw insults at people whom she dislike in school. It is almost a similar case to the one of Megan Meier’s. The 16 year old girl created fake profile and started befriending the victims before hurling insults to them. Luckily, she was caught by the school’s authorities before the victims incur any deep emotional scars. More of the news can be found HERE.
A survey done in 2006 shows that a quarter of the 3,488 Singaporean surveyed have been victims of cyber-bullying. In fact, in a survey that I did not long ago that involved 56 students , 24 students said that they have been victims of cyber-bullying before. The most popular form of cyber-bullying is receiving threatening or insulting emails from strangers. However, all of them claimed to not have been affected by it.
Recently, I went to a nearby secondary to interview some of the students for their thoughts. I did a video interview to find out what teenagers think about cyber-bullying and whether they will be affected by it.
HOW CAN WE PREVENT CYBER BULLYING?
There are many methods in which we can help in preventing cyber-bullying. This includes:
• Tell our friends whom we know cyber-bully others, to stop
• Report cyber-bullying to adults or teachers. If it is on internet sites, to the admin or moderator.
• Block all communications with the cyber-bully
We can also educate our younger siblings or relatives about the proper internet etiquette. In this way, not only are we preventing them form being a victim of cyber-bullying, we are also preventing them from becoming a cyber-bully.
