Cyber bullying among preteens and teenagers has been the topic of much conversation lately. Only a few weeks ago, I came across a CNN article detailing the suicide of a thirteen-year-old girl who had been incessantly bullied via the internet by a classmate and neighbor of the same age. While I can't recall all the particulars of the situation, I do remember that the bully's mother had a very active role in the harassment of this young girl, helping to keep her daughter's insults constant. (Why would an adult woman want to engage in this stupidity? The article suggested that this woman had some dislike for the target's mother and was acting out of spite, which is a perfectly rationale explanation for her acting half her age.) The harassment went on for weeks until the victim took her own life. I've read five or six similar scenarios in the past months, all of which resulted in suicides.
Cyber bullying is not a new phenomenon; it existed long before the days of FaceSpace, Twitter and MyBook. It's been around just as long as the technology that makes it possible, and it's easy to see why it has grown into an enormous problem. While I attended high school, all of the cyber bullying that I heard about was confined to chat rooms, ICQ/AIM, and guest books of personal web pages, in which anyone could anonymously leave hateful commentary for the unlucky owner. (I can recall a single exception that's worthy of sharing: a somewhat popular guy with too much time on his hands decided to start an internet message board for my high school. Anyone could post anything. Regardless of this guy's motive for starting it, the message board quickly became nothing more than a miniature
Topix.com that allowed students to debate important questions of the day: Who has the biggest boobs? Who has the hottest mom? Who's the ugliest? Is [cheerleader's name] still sleeping with [substitute teacher/physical education teacher]?) I won't argue that cyber bullying wasn't bad years ago. It was prevalent, but the channels for the harassment were significantly fewer.
Today, outlets for internet bullying seem unlimited. MySpace and similar sites are perfect tools for cyber bullies when users don't keep strong privacy settings in place. YouTube, CNN.com and other frequently visited websites are always abuzz with commentary from members. Rather than fostering any decent amount of intelligent discussion, the comment sections usually contain nothing more than ignorant opinions and heated back-and-forth exchanges between pseudo intellectuals living in their mothers' basements. I've seen way too much name-calling and inexcusable attacks on these comment boards. (Hence I try to avoid them altogether if it's possible.) There are plenty of websites that allow unrestricted, anonymous communication among members (and sometimes non-members); anyone on such a site is an easy target for someone bored out of his or her mind and ready to ruin someone's day.
It's unfortunate that jerks are everywhere: the internet is certainly no exception. In general, it's not difficult to keep yourself relatively safe from this sort of harassment. If you maintain strong privacy settings and are able to resist the urge to put your two cents into every politically-fueled diatribe on internet discussion boards, you should be okay. I think, however, that this is slightly easier said than done for preteens and teenagers, since people in that age bracket seem to have a knack for finding new and creative ways to annoy and harass people they dislike. The following story is a good illustration of this.
I read a news article last week regarding yet another teenager who committed suicide because she was being harassed by classmates. The bullying didn't all take place on the internet; it happened mostly at the girl's high school. The incident that triggered the eventual suicide was made possible by a horde of cell phone-wielding teenagers. According to the article, the girl took a topless photo of herself and sent it to her boyfriend. Said photo was intercepted by a friend of the boyfriend, who decided to forward it to many students at the girl's high school and to students at neighboring schools. After the photo had been thoroughly circulated online and elsewhere, the girl began to be verbally and physically abused by some of her classmates. She committed suicide after a few weeks of harassment.
That news story was actually my impetus for writing this post. Though the suicide was disturbing enough, I found many other details unsettling: Why was a thirteen-year-old sending a topless photo of herself to her boyfriend? (God forbid I question this, right?) Why do almost all people in this age bracket have cell phones with internet capabilities in the first place? (I have yet to hear a legitimate argument as to why someone who's not even old enough to drive a car really needs a cell phone. Maybe I'm still stuck in 2002.) Why were a good number of these students getting away with harassing their classmate when the abuse was apparently very visible and frequent? I find it really hard to believe that not a single teacher or staff member at the school didn't pick up on this while it was going on.
Sigh. In happier news, I posted new albums to my Picasa gallery. Please take a look.
