Cyber Bullying at it's Worst

I’m very grateful to declare that I have never been the victim of cyber bulling.

When I was at school the biggest threat the Internet posed to me, as my mum so tiresomely reminded me every time I dialled online, were those pesky “creeps” lurking in chat rooms. Never once did we broach the issue of cyber bulling. I was blissfully spared from the non-stop online harassment of cyber bulling.

I find it alarming to consider that approximately 35% of people had experienced cyber bulling (Mishna, Saini & Solomon 2009). But what concerns me more is the knowledge that even more instances would no doubt go unreported.

The greatest difference between the “traditional” bullying my school friends are I endured and today’s cyber bullying epidemic is that the harassment, threats, embarrassment and exclusion don’t stop with the school bell at the end of the day (Mishna, Saini & Solomon 2009). No, cyber bullying follows its victim home. The one place where children should experience a sense of sanctity and relief, the bullies now have access to. Cyber bulling means that the harassment continues in the victim’s own home in a more invasive manner, persistent manner than ever before.

At the end of last year I read a magazine article about 12 year old Rebecca Sedwick, who was driven to suicide after suffering perpetual cyber bulling by her 12 and 14 year old classmates (Almasy, Segal & Couwels 2013). The article sickened me. I couldn’t believe that a girl so young would result in ending her own life due to the fact that she was unable to escape from her aggressors. What alarmed me even more is that on searching the issue online, a multitude of similar news stories were listed. Rebecca Segwick’s bullies were ultimately charged as minors with aggravated stalking, as bullying itself is not yet against the law.

Without such serious legal consequences for cyber bullies, it’s hard to imagine that the prevalence will not continue to grow at a rapid rate. I believe that Rheingold would feel deeply disturbed by the dark side of social media, as it has completely contradicted his romantic ideals of a virtual community as a space for people to hold “public discussions… with sufficient human feeling to form webs of personal relationships” (Rheingold 1993). It’s unlikely that the Internet will ever revert to a safe place for victims of bullying, however I am passionate in the belief that action needs to be taken by parents, teachers and students alike to work together to combat the frequency and persistence of cyber bullying.

References:

Almasy, Segal & Couwels 2013, ‘Sheriff: Taunting post leads to arrests in Rebecca Sedwick bullying death’, CNN, 16 Otober 2013, viewed 3 February 2014, <http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/15/justice/rebecca-sedwick-bullying-death-arrests/>.

Mishna, F, Saini, M & Solomon, S 2009, 'Ongoing and online: children and youth's perceptions of cyber bullying', Children and Youth Services Review, vol. 31, issue 12, pp. 1222-1228, <http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/science/article/pii/S0190740909001200>.

Rheingold, H, 1993, The Virtual Community, MIT Press, Massachusetts.