Cyber-bullying

I wanted to let you know about this internet/social networking trend. It might not apply to you, but if you know someone with children, it could apply to them. In regards to social networking pages, a person should always be careful not to place information that could lead to identity theft on the page. Anyway, I hope you find this interesting.

Parents Often Unaware of Cyber-Bullying
Bullying doesn’t just happen on school grounds anymore. (Ruby Washington/The New York Times)Research indicates that as many as 75 percent of teens have been bullied online, but only one in 10 have reported the problem to parents or other adults, a new study shows.The study, published in the September issue of The Journal of School Health, is the latest to sound the alarm about so-called cyber-bullying, which can occur on social networking sites and in e-mail and text messages. Sometimes cyber-bullying involves taunting or threatening e-mail or text messages or putting embarrassing pictures or personal attacks on teen networking sites like MySpace or Facebook.“The Internet is not functioning as a separate environment but is connected with the social lives of kids in school,” said lead study author Jaana Juvonen, a professor of psychology and chair of the developmental psychology program at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Bullying on the Internet looks similar to what kids do face-to-face in school.”The U.C.L.A. study surveyed 1,454 teens between the ages of 12 and 17, who were recruited through an unidentified teen Web site from August through October 2005. Forty-one percent of the teenagers surveyed reported between one and three online bullying incidents over the course of a year, 13 percent reported four to six incidents, and 19 percent reported seven or more incidents.Despite the prevalence of cyber-bullying, many teens don’t realize how common it is and often believe it is only happening to them, Dr. Juvonen said.“When kids start thinking, ‘It’s just happening to me,’ they likely blame themselves, and once they do that, it increases their risk of depression,” Dr. Juvonen said. “Kids don’t know how common cyber-bullying is, even among their best friends. Cyber-bullying is not a plight of a few problematic children but a shared experience.”Teens in the survey said they didn’t tell their parents about the problems for a variety of reasons. Half of the teens who were cyber-bullied said they just “need to learn to deal with it.” Nearly one-third said they worried parents might restrict Internet access, a fear more commonly expressed among girls than boys. One-third of 12- to 14-year-olds said they didn’t tell an adult about the bullying out of fear that they could get into trouble with their parents.“Many parents do not understand how vital the Internet is to their social lives,” Dr. Juvonen said. “Parents can take detrimental action with good intentions, such as trying to protect their children by not letting them use the Internet at all. That is not likely to help parent-teen relationships or the social lives of their children.”Although most people view cyber-bullying as anonymous, nearly three out of four of the bullied teens in the survey said they knew or were “pretty sure” they knew who was doing the bullying.