oneworldtalk

orange blossom · Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 1162 Location: Australia

Teens need to know about online bullies. Well, actually, adults should also educate and prepare themselves to avoid surprise attacks and better equipped to guide the younger ones.

Though there is no physical contact, online bullying is not much different from schoolyard bullying. The victim suffers no less and could be psychologically scarred by the episodes from a single or a group of bullies.

Cyberbullying can take various forms -- name calling, death threats, challenge to a duel, spread rumours, forwarding sexually explicit material, doctoring photos and videos without consent.

As social networking sites Bebo, MySpace, Friendster, Facebook thrive, our kids are exposed to potential bullies. Children these days face the dilemma of wanting to be associated with the latest fad in youth culture to feel a sense of belonging, yet not knowing how to deal with those who flout the rules of the game.

Security settings on the websites may help to weed out those who do not belong to the network but it does not stop a friend's friend from accessing one's personal data.

Tgat a teen geek Tom Wood managed to crack the Government's attempts to install internet security filter costing $84 million in less than 30 minutes show how the IT savvy can bypass attempts to protect vulnerable teens.

Other associated problems are internet addiction and uncertainty over "real" and "virtual" online relationship.

Teenagers and adults alike need clear definitions of what appropriate online behaviour is and how and when to block, delete and report threatening users.

For details, please refer to : http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/teens-need-to-know-how-to-deal-with-online-bullies/2007/11/26/1196036809917.html

Additional Readings :

http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html

http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Breakers/5257/Chatet.htm

http://thedigitalsanctuary.textdriven.com/tag/blogger

http://www.booksquare.com/how-to-behave-in-the-blogosphere-the-easy-way/

http://www.whereistand.com/infocats1/9337

Meddy · Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 365 Location: Resort

Check out these sites as well.

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2007/06/cyberbullying-b.html

http://www.whitehorsestar.com/auth.php?r=46818

XP · Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 622 Location: Beautiful Island

It is a positive step taken by the Ministry of Education which previously tend to downplay the seriousness of bullying. In a society where youths are not known to be outspoken and do not articulate their problems openly out of concern that they could be ridiculed or misunderstood, it is essential that the schools and authorities clamp down on internet bullies and educate students on how to deal with them.