By Anne Harding

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Kids often experience or witness racial discrimination on the Internet, and the more frequently they are personally exposed to this discrimination, the worse their mental health, a new study shows.

The findings show that parents and educators need to help young people, especially those of color, develop the tools to look critically at racial discrimination, Dr. Brendesha M. Tynes of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign told Reuters Health.

Much attention has been devoted to certain types of online victimization, Tynes noted, for example bullying and sexual solicitation. But victimization based on race has been "largely ignored," she told Reuters Health.

To investigate, Tynes and colleagues surveyed high school students about their experiences with racial discrimination on the Web, asking them about whether they had been exposed to discrimination themselves and if they'd witnessed others being discriminated against.

Among the 264 14- to18-year-olds who participated in the survey, 71 percent of blacks, 71 percent of whites and 67 percent of those who identified themselves as "multiracial/other" said they had witnessed online discrimination at least once.

Forty-two percent of the "multiracial/other" group said they had personally experienced discrimination, as did 29 percent of black youth and 20 percent of white youth.

These experiences could range from seeing a white friend-of-a-friend use an ethnic slur to observing negative comments on blogs to "making fun" of certain ethnic groups while playing video games, Tynes noted, adding that she has seen much worse in other research she has done on online discrimination.

Tynes and her team also found that the young people who had experienced individual racial discrimination were more likely to have symptoms of anxiety and depression, although witnessing such discrimination wasn't tied to increased risk. Tynes is planning to follow young people to see if these experiences may actually cause mental health problems.

The researcher said she doesn't believe that the solution to online racial discrimination lies in having parents keep a tight rein on their children's Internet use, but instead involves helping young people build a positive racial identity and learn to critique racial discrimination when it occurs.

"We need to move beyond the three pages of reading about Martin Luther King on his birthday or during Black History Month and really do more to educate kids more about the culture and contributions of other ethnic groups," Tynes said.

SOURCE: Journal of Adolescent Health, December 2008.

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