Cruel text messages are the hallmark of the cyber-bully. (Alan Decker for The New York Times)The schoolyard bully has gone digital.
As more and more young people have access to computers and cell phones, a new risk to teens is beginning to emerge. Electronic aggression, in the form of threatening text messages and the spread of online rumors on social networking sites, is a growing concern. Researchers estimate that between 9 percent and 34 percent of youth are victims of so-called “cyber-bullies.” And as many as one out of five teens 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 tormented online are more likely to get a detention or be suspended, skip school and experience emotional distress, the medical journal reports. Teens who receive rude or nasty comments via text messages are six times more likely to say they feel unsafe at school.
The concern is that bullying is still perceived by many educators and parents as a problem that involves physical contact. Most research and enforcement efforts focus on bullying in school classrooms, locker rooms, hallways and bathrooms. But given that 80 percent of adolescents use cell phones or computers, “social interactions have increasingly moved from personal contact at school to virtual contact in the chat room,” write Kirk R. Williams and Nancy G. Guerra, researchers at the University of California, Riverside and 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, chat rooms and blogs.
School districts in Florida, South Carolina, Utah and Oregon have responded by creating new policies to deal with digital bullies. New York City is enforcing rules banning communication devices in school buildings, and Washington state recently passed a law requiring that cyber-bullying be part of school district harassment prevention policies.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists resources for information on new technology and youth violence. For the full special issue from the Journal of Adolescent Health, click here.
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As the mother of 3 teens & post teens, I have become all too familiar with the stealthy nature of bullying today. It’s not overt, because of bullying policies at school, but it has transformed itself so that much of teen bullying happens in school, during class changes, in hallways, on buses, during lunch, under the noses–and apparently under the radar– of the educators. The cyber bullying is an extension of this. I think it should all be taken very seriously, and that there should be firm, certain and extremely unpleasant consequences to engaging in this kind of behavior which is so destructive to teen psyches.
— AMomWe have friends whose teenage daughter got caught up with the proverbial fast crowd, and crossed the wrong girl, and was suddenly being intensely bullied online. The way they used IM to publicly humiliate her was unreal. I couldn’t believe how hateful they were. Ultimately, our friend’s daughter sent an angry message telling one of the girls she was going to get her back, and the next thing they knew, the police were at their door because that girl’s mother’s had reported a ‘threatening message.’ The police told our friends that in that affluent community, investigating complaints about middle and high school social conflicts accounted for about half of their daily work. Our friends ultimately took their daughter out of school and homeschooled her for a year. It was not an easy solution because she was severely depressed. She literally would not get up, or out of, bed and told her parents she would kill herself if they made her go to school. Apparently, this happens often enough now that their school district had a program to address this and provided a home tutor for 5 months.
— francoisInteresting. I guess there are a lot of kids who will find ways to be cruel in any environment. I wonder if the kids getting targeted by digital bullying tend to be the same ones who get bullied physically, or not. Also, are the kids who are doing the bullying digitally the same ones who bully physically, or not?
What advice should parents give their kids to help them protect themselves against bullying (and against the impulse within themselves to bully someone else!)?
— corinneBanning all communication devices in school because of cyber-bullying? That sounds like an overreaction. Bullying isn’t the only thing that happens in the real world that is being replicated online. Socialization itself has moved online. To ban this technology outright is just a failure to recognize what kids’ lives are like today.
I’m speaking as someone who graduated from high school three years ago and started using the internet socially in seventh grade. I have experienced bullying online (I’m sure most kids my age have), but I’ve had many more positive experiences as well. Technology isn’t the enemy!! The cause of online bullying is the same thing that causes all bullying; the fact that kids can be cruel to one another. I have no idea what the solution is to that problem.
— JSAs a fifteen year old girl who has been cyber-bullied (and real bullied) not too long ago, I can tell you that it does hurt. The problem is not that people are different online, it’s that who they really are shows. You’d be amazed at how many person stories I’ve dug out of Myspace bulletins because people feel more safe there. But, a girl and a boy in my class also said horrible things to me, because they felt that there would be no repercussions. The point I’m getting at is that all that can be done is to raise a person right. That includes parents picking up on emotional issues and handling them appropriately in their children. Both of the people who cyber-bullied me are troubled. One has a broken home, the other has a hyper-”Christian” home where the Lord is used as an excuse not to deal with things, they just pray and hope god does it all.
— NicoleIn conclusion, the problem should be targeted at the root: the people using the technology, not the technology. It all lies in the person using it.
Parents, schools and authorities are going to have to step up and become active on this issue. They’re going to have to realize that these devices can become weapons in the hands of the wrong people - yes - even their own little darlings.
There was a time not so long ago when not a one of us had a telephone that our families and friends could reach us no matter where we were no matter what time it was no matter the crisis. There once was a day when the parents had to communicate with the schools if there was a problem and needed to reach a child in school.
Parent, School and legal authorities are going to have to come to an agreement - that those using these devices to bullym harm or threaten someone will then have their priveleges suspended both at school and at home. Yes - that’s right - Temper Tantrum Throwing Tricia and Tommy are going to have to do without their cellphone for a few days.
The parents and the authorities are also going to have to find a way to come to agreement with MySpace and FaceBook, etc. that allows the parent to suspend their minor child’s accounts for however long the parents deem necessary as well.
That’s right - the parents are going to have to parent. THey are going to have to teach their kids that bullying is unacceptable, wrong and if their actions cause harm to another there is a penalty.
— KatySpot on Katy! Parents need to parent (a lacking commodity it seems), but it is also going to require schools, teachers and administrators to get a spine and work towards eliminating this.
I am certain, however, that some school will have clear evidence of bullying for an individual (or individuals) and the response from Mommy and Daddy’s lawyer will be swift and have a price tag attached to it. Never mind that their kid is a bully….it’s a behavior due to an imbalance in his/her Ritalin dosage or whatever they can scrounge from the Excuse-of-the-Month Club.
We are teaching our kids that there is no accountability and if you have the right connections and resources, you can do pretty much whatever you want. And if you are challenged, you take ‘em to court. Pathetic.
— JohnI think adults and the media should set the example for our youths and provide stricter laws against verbal harassment and controlling the gossipy tabloids that exploit and humiliate individuals for a profit.
http://savvmari.com
— SaVvmariThe kids who bully on line are not the same ones who physically bully kids—it is a silent menace and doesn’t require physical bravado–or courage for that matter, so in fact it opens the “bullying corridor” to a whole new set of kids.
— Karen BizerWe live in a bully culture, so why should we be surprised that our children bully and find ever-increasing ways to be effective at their task. Certainly corporate America is one of our clearest illustrations of bullying–ask anyone who isn’t in the upper ranks; the military is a model of how bullying works from boot camp on; our government bullies with it’s tax policies, wiretapping, border patrols, international policy, etc. Every time a single mother makes less on the dollar in her office and can’t get the same tax breaks that a married couple gets, she feels bullied. Certainly all the people who have lost their homes in the mortgage scandal, they have felt bullied by the lenders. We are trying to root out something that we model to our children daily. Adolescents are savvy, they see what we’re up to. Why wouldn’t they want to emulate their role models? Do I think bullying in all forms is wrong? Absolutely. Do I want our children to be protected, safe, comfortable? With every bone in my body. But I’m afraid all we can accomplish here is to try and heal the wounds when it’s the adult weapons that we should be addressing.
— LHBack in the day, a 13 year old was responsible for
— gmahturning a field, hunting for the family, protecting its
interests in a real way. There was a concrete purpose to
the life they led. I don’t wish that hard work on
children today, but they do deal with fear and
intimidation that causes real stress on their still developing
characters. Instead of wild animals and mother nature,
they must protect themselves from humans who have no
compassion and little guidance in their own lives. Some
parents are in the mix doing the same things, as in the case
recently of the girl who committed suicide after being
humiliated online, as it turns out, by someone’s mother
who created an online profile as a kid!!!!!!! Too much
time on their hands!!
Right on John.
— David SKaty and John are brave to say the unsayable. Too many parents are enablers of bad behaviour by kids. I grew up and live in a relatively affluent Bergen County suburb, and this kind of enabling was going on when I was a teenager, and has only gotten worse.
Although my days of being bullied long predate the internet, I would add that the kids have no sense of time or futurity, and don’t realise (or care) that unlike graffiti on the restroom wall, or words flung in the cafeteria, cruelty perpetrated on the internet has no borders in time or space. This was always true in that the scars on the psyche never fully heal (or I wouldn’t be writing this now). But now the consequences resonate in the wider world, not just the victim’s wounded heart. It is quite possible that decades from now, total strangers miles or continents away, perhaps a fiance or job interviewer, will find the slanderous words or photoshopped fake-porn picture dormant on some server. Bad stuff on the ‘net is like something out of Stephen King — the evil never really dies, it just hides. The aspiring teenage bully can now plant a depth charge that detonates years after all involved have lost their yearbooks and forgotten each other’s names.
I don’t know how to make kids understand the damage they can do. I think the only thing that makes them understand is when the tables are turned, the bully becomes the target.
— ACWHaving grown up with Internet at home, but not yet widespread cellphones in high school (I am now 25), I think perhaps the children are far too sensative and unwilling to defend themselves.
Beyond the fact that children (and adults) should not be using cell phones while in school, they should not be accepting messages from bullies in the first place. Put known bullies on an ignore list, accept only messages from your friends.
Furthermore, parents need to teach their kids discretion. Don’t share your cell-phone number, allow only known friends to comment on Myspace, etc.
Unlike hallway verbal abuse, and locker-room teasing, this so-called cyber-bullying is completely ignorable and avoidable. When Johnny or Janey Bully text, just delete without reading. Put them on your spam filter, etc.
From TPP — I wish it were that simple. Kids create whole myspace pages to mock other kids. They send humiliating text messages and pictures to large groups of friends mocking another kid. And when a child receives a phone text from someone they know, there is no way for them to know if it’s a bullying message. It’s not about blocking someone’s IM messsages, it’s about widespread taunting and humiliation of peers in the online social arena.
— duxSome 15 years ago, while taking a Human Sexuality course, I proposed to my professor that my final paper cover online bullying and sexual harrassment, basing it primarily on a case that was making waves among the gamers and the BBS communities. A woman who played one of the games and had recently broken up with another player had had her account ‘locked’ by him so she couldn’t log out, and then her avatar was sexually assaulted and beaten while her ‘community’ cheered on her attacker; the final touch was the posting of her full name and home address. The police told her that until there was a ‘real’ threat, they couldn’t do anything and she was denied a restraining order against the ex (who lived in her town). You can see that the case made a lasting impression on me. As a gamer and a member of several MUD and MUSH communities, I was horrified by this invasion of person and privacy, and wanted to research how the anonymity of online interaction promoted harassment and abuse.
His response? That the ’silly girl’ should have realized that her computer had an ‘off’ button, and gone outside for some fresh air and exercise she probably needed anyway. Condescendingly, he explained to me that online harassment would never be as meaningful or traumatic as ‘real’ harassment, and only a ’severely maladjusted’ person would ever get so wrapped up in an artificial community as to be hurt or upset by things that happened there.
I wonder how good old Dr. Anderson feels now, about the reality of online interactions. Are those of us who count our online communities as important parts of a social circle still ’severely maladjusted’ in his eyes?
I still see his attitude among people who dismiss cyberbullying, that onscreen interactions are inherently meaningless because they’re not ‘real’ people and all you have to go on is what someone tells you. Well, in face-to-face interactions, all you have to go on is what someone tells you. OK, in person it’s harder to convince someone that a 45-year-old accountant named Murray is really a 14-year-old cheerleader named Madison, but you can convince someone that a cruel person is kind, that a sexual predator is ‘good with kids’, that a manipulative abuser is just a great guy with a touchy temper. Everyone you meet, online or off, could be lying to you in some way. That someone is looking you in the eye is no guarantee you’re seeing the real him. Heck, his eyes may not even be that color!
And some of the most enduring friendships I have are with people whose faces I’ve never seen. When my best friend died, her online community made contact with me. We mourned her together, and have remained friends, despite the fact that we’re scattered across several states and two countries.
— RowanMy daughter attends a school where students are required to wear uniforms. I read an article (maybe NYTimes?) about Middle School girls bullying others about clothes - what was cool, uncool, etc. Of course, my daughter hates wearing a school uniform, so I talked to her about this article, highlighting the benefits of school uniforms. She stated quite frankly, “Kids can also find something to bully others about. If not clothes, they can always find something else”. My questions: Do these Bullies know that they are mean and cruel? Is this a way for them to feel in control and give them sense of empowerment? As far as I know, my 6th grade daughter has not been a subject of bullying. I shudder to think the impact of cruel actions would have on her.
— ParentI have had this happen to my son last school year. The school did nothing and it is said to be the best school system in the nation. The message was not sent to my son directly but sent to someone stating that a 9 MM was going to be used to kill my son and his girlfriend. It is still in the court system now. This has been going on for a year now. The other student has been charged towards the end of last school year with a weapon on school property but the school still did nothing. I am so tired of the whole thing and still have not gotten help from the school or the district. If anyone would like to know the school it is in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School System.
— Lt. BillThis is not news nor should this be taken seriously. Bullying is a part of life, there is a real world out there and the sooner children are taught that the better. If they can’t deal with it now then how will they deal with it in the future. If your a parent and your son or daughter is being bullied you should teach your child to be above it and move on, not wine to the media and make legislation that will try to stop this behavior because trust me it will never stop, its a part of life DEAL WITH IT!
— Cori BartofTo Cori Bartof:
To say it’s going to happen and “deal with it” ignores the “collateral damage” that was discussed both in the article and the subsequent comments. If someone posts a slanderous mySpace page that years later costs you a job (potential employers are scouring Web sites to get information about applicants that the applicants probably would prefer that they not find), then it is far from harmless. If a sensitive teenager being relentlessly bullied commits suicide, that is not harmless. If the recipients of vicious emails about another person believe those emails and act on them in a detrimental way (such as beating up the person — which has happened), that is not harmless either.
You’re right about the fact that there are no easy solutions, but to suggest that we forget about it and “deal with it” is insensitive and naive.
— sscheiberOf COURSE bullies know they are mean and cruel. That’s the whole point of bullying.
And Cori, enlighten me. How does one “deal with” being called names, tripped in halls, being picked last for everything, never being able to sit on the bus because you’re at the last stop and no one will let you sit, always having to be “assigned” a partner or group when activities require “working together?” How do you “deal with it” when it goes on, continuously, from the time you’re in 6th grade until you graduate from high school?
Some kids just don’t fit in. I was one of them. I blamed myself, but didn’t know how to change to be different. In a way, I suppose I coped by eventually not caring anymore what anyone thought. But not every kid has the fundamental self-esteem that I got from my family.
— JM“Be above it and move on”?
When I was in sixth grade, a schoolyard bully followed me home every day for months, threatening me with physical violence. We shared a PE class; she ‘accidentally’ hit me in the stomach so hard during a game that I threw up. The coach, who hadn’t been watching, ruled it an honest mistake. She also singled out a girl I was in band with, and tripped her so that her bookbag and clarinet fell in the creek. All the bully’s friends swore that the girl had just tripped because she was ‘clumsy and stupid’.
Later, in eighth grade, a different bully (I had moved) shoved me into a brick wall hard enough that I blacked out.
In high school, bullying got uglier. A young woman in one of my AP classes developed a ‘reputation’ as a result of a dispute with another girl. She didn’t even know the other girl had been spreading rumors until she was fighting her date off physically and he hit her and told her, “You’ve done it with all those other guys, so you might as well let me.” Another girl, in fierce competition for several scholarships, had her locker vandalized and her term papers stolen, her extracurricular tutoring sessions cancelled when a rival started the rumors that she was *sleeping* with the seventh-grader she was tutoring, and a brick thrown through her window the night before the SATs with a death threat on it.
This isn’t just some name calling, or maybe a vicious game of ’slug bug’ on the bus. It’s cruel, calculated, hateful abuse.
— RowanMy intuition says that anyone who says “DEAL WITH IT” when referring to these horrible actions was/is probably a bully…the type of person who blames the victim and believes he/she was “asking for it” by being different.
— PaulaRowan, I doubt anyone would disagree with you. Many of the things you have described surely go beyond childish bullying and into the realm of potential abuse. However, these tales you tell, while true, seem to me to be a severe minority of the bullying cases out there. Most of the bullying I experienced as a kid, as well as most of it I hear about from the middle- and high-school kids I now tutor, is of a less abusive nature.
That’s not to say it doesn’t hurt. To an eighth-grade girl, having her classmate (or, worse, her former-friend) call her names or tell false stories about her can seem like the end of the world. For a high-school guy to be tripped in the hall by the girl he likes — and in front of everyone — is a horrible embarrassment. I recall having three guys try to shove me into a locker as a seventh-grader, and I remember stories about kids who got duct-taped to locker-room benches in high school. These are more typical bullying episodes, from what I’ve seen. They’re mostly verbal and social, rather than physical. None of this was fun, but they also weren’t the type of abuse Rowan wrote of. And in a way, Cori is right: if you don’t learn to deal with the hurts people will throw at you, then you’re going to be miserable throughout adulthood. The tripping and the duct-tape might go away, but the sideways looks, false rumors, and talking behind your back will not end just because you pass your eighteenth birthday and get a real job.
Similarly, I think there needs to be a distinction made between “normal” (which doesn’t mean “right”, you’ll note) and “severe” online bullying. To repeatedly threaten someone with a gun, whether online or in person, is a lot different than mocking someone for wearing ugly shoes.
To #14’s comment, TPP replied: “it’s about widespread taunting and humiliation of peers in the online social arena.” I think this is true, but I question whether having a MySpace page mock you is truly any worse than having your classmates mock you in person. It seems hurtful either way. At least if it’s an email, you can delete it, or if it’s a Facebook page, you can ignore it. Of course, the psychological pain is still there, but again, I see no difference between this pain and the pain that would be caused by in-person bullying.
If we really want to help our kids, what we need to do is not worry about which fourteen-year-old has posted which offensive photo, and instead worry about teaching our kids how to roll with the punches. Building self-esteem and confidence seems to me a better solution than shutting down a website or banning kids from carrying cell phones. Those things are just tools. The bullying itself is the same at heart as it was before any of them were even invented.
— JenniIf the kids could get the message that bullying is extremely low-class, I think most of them would stop being so cruel to one another. Being a school yard bully is the lowest form of social class I can possibly think of. With teenagers so aware of social class and brand awareness, I think it would be great if the media spin this instead of stories about children taking their lives due to bullying. The school should also be very firm with the parents of these idiot kids when their children are expelled from school for about a month.
so tired of the violence.
— ktembreyThe thing that’s missing from this conversation is the fact that being bullied has actual constructive value. Being bullied is a serious life lesson, and when parents intervene too quickly, the kids wind up not learning anything from the tormenting experience. What a lose-lose situation!
I was bullied terribly as a teenager, and have to answer the charge that anyone who says “deal with it” is probably a bully themselves.
As someone who has been bullied, I say “deal with it.”
I hated high school and middle school. It was the worst seven years of my life. But I grew tremendously from that social difficulty, and now would not change my high school experience for the world.
I know exactly how to deal with bullies now, and bullies are still everywhere, so this is a fantastic skill. I am very glad that my parents never intervened, actually, even though I had to do things like walk home from school without any shoes (shoes stolen while in swimming pool) or sit outside without any clothes and wait for ride home from swim practice. In a bathing suit and a wet towel with my hair freezing in the wind (clothes and jacket hidden during swim practice). Or had to deal with very nasty and untrue rumors about my own sexual behavior. And so on.
I am glad my parents never solved this problem for me because now I can deal with anything. I am unshockable, unflappable. Strangely, I am more confident, because I know that I have been through *hell* and not just survived but prospered! I have intense inner resources. More inner resources than any bully, and more inner resources than anyone whose parents saved them from torment.
If I had been delivered from my bullies by overly involved parents, I never would have discovered that I have the resources to deal with it, and would have continued to fear bullies for the rest of my life!
TPP responds: You are lucky that you could get through it. I’d suggest readers take a look at the story at the top of the most-emailed list right now, about an Internet bullying incident that involved an adult neighbor harassing a girl online and the girl ended up killing herself. It’s heartbreaking and horrible.
— D