Cyberbullying Gains Momentum in US 241
interglossa writes "Findings from the Pew Internet Project are being reported on the BBC news web site, indicating a rising incidence of cyberbullying among teenagers in the United States. The study showed a slightly higher incidence among those visiting social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Tactics cited include being 'the victim of an aggressive email, IM or text message' and 'having a rumor spread about them online'. While the concept of cyberbully has been around in the US for a while, most coverage of the issue has focused on more extreme examples abroad. It would seem young people in the US are fully adapting to the anonymity of online interactions."
Lines need to br drawn. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing new (Score:2, Insightful)
Cheers!
Riiight... (Score:2, Insightful)
The World's Biggest Bully: (Score:0, Insightful)
, who defies the legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. Federal Government, lives at
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. [whitehouse.org]
Why the hell is this such a big deal? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, stalking and death threats ARE bad, but last time I checked there were already laws in place to deal with those. If you ask me, this is just the next front for the politically correct clownshoes to work in their feel good laws that accomplish nothing and ultimately end up turning your average jackass into a criminal, you know, "for the greater good."
Everyone needs thicker skin, as the whole uproar about this is more a symptom of our continued pussification than any problem endemic to the internet.
Re:Riiight... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why do people think the Internet is different? (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, stop the madness.
Just because one or more computers communicating over the Internet is involved, it does not magically change the nature of what's going on. "Cyberbullying" is just like a bullshit marketing term: somebody made it up to make something old sound new.
If you can help a kid deal with school-yard bullies and the high-school rumor mill, they should be able to cope with this.
Why in my day... (Score:5, Insightful)
We used to be physically bullied. I would gladly have accepted a MySpace page full of personal attacks in place of a schoolyard full of actual ones.
All things considered... (Score:4, Insightful)
than a punch in the face!
Re:Nothing new (Score:4, Insightful)
Cheers!
Re:Why in my day... (Score:3, Insightful)
It remains a corrosive experience, all the more so because the assault is anonymous.
I get misty... (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids these days are such pussies.
I get a little misty when I recall the times when getting my ass kicked at school for being a dork was just a way of life. It didn't kill me but it made me stronger. I can't imagine being intimidated by some other dork's IM, e-mail, or MySpace post.
I miss the days before we had to have cops patrolling the hallways as if the kids were in prison. I miss the days when kids just got into a little fight and that was that. Now, parents sue each other or even go to jail.
Sure, we could blame it on violence on TV or video games but they are a reflection of our culture--art immitating life. No kids even dreamed of pulling off a school bombing/shooting like Columbine in the 70s or 80s.
What's happened over the last 25-30 years? Maybe kids just need attention because their parents are addicted to the internet, drugs, work, TV, porn, or themselves? Or maybe they just need to get their ass whipped now and then in small doses (vice mass murder)? Maybe we should just pay more attention to them?
Seriously though--cyberbullying? puh-leez!
We keep putting up all these little rules to keep terrorists from blowing us up; or to keep kids from shooting up their schools; or to keep other bad random things from happening again. How about we look at the root cause for all the violence? I suppose the government (local, state, or federal) will magnanamously step in and declare cyberbullying a terroristic threat but that won't deal with the real issue: people in this country, including our kids, feel angry, frustrated, and violent about something.
When I was a kid, we felt scared all the time because of the Cold War--the Russians were going to bomb us any damn day. Today, we live in constant fear of everything--getting blown up by terrorist, shot by a crack head car jacker, mowed down by a drunk driver, run off the road by a road-raged commuter, crazy-ass snipers firing from the trunk of the car, drive-by shootings, attacked by stalkers, etc., etc., etc....
Now we have to fear intimitading electronic communications? Seriously--WTF?
I am at a total loss for what is wrong with us--as a society. Maybe we need to legalize marijuana--at least for a couple of weeks, and get everyone to just chill the f**k out and quit preying upon each other? I've never smoked but my friends who do/have are the least likely people to do ANYTHING much less commit an act of violence--unless you consider fighting over a bag of Cheetos "violent."
OK, maybe declaring a national Green Day (redefining "Green Peace") isn't a solution, but our whole country is edgy and willing to kill. Something is wrong.
Cyberbullying is the LEAST of our freaking problems.
[/RANT MODE OFF]
MMORPGs (Score:3, Insightful)
The anonimity of the Internet removes some of the greatest shackels on action (retribution, public shaming, public shunning) for those which feel empowered and have their egos boosted by harassing others (typically, but not exclusively, the above mentioned immature teenagers).
This has been going on ever since the Internet has been opened to people beyond the confines of academia (probably even before).
Personally i would like adults only servers for most MMORPGs to avoid wasting any of my precious 3h/day of playing because of some griefing kid, but that's a different story
Re:Lines need to br drawn. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lines need to br drawn. (Score:3, Insightful)
Please post your "superior alternative".
Re:Why in my day... (Score:2, Insightful)
And to head off the PC "Being gay isn't wrong" responses, Catholic school in the 70's was NOT the place to be labelled a fag, true sexual orientation notwithstanding.
And to head off the other side of teh house, no, I do not think new laws need to be made. We just need to apply the old ones in an aggressive manner. Bullying shouldn't be tolerated, period. It is assault and/or battery, or stalking and harrassment. Just because it's kids doesn't mean it isn't wrong AND illegal.
Re:Lines need to br drawn. (Score:5, Insightful)
Some groups of kids will be mean to other groups of kids. Apparently this has been going on since the dawn of time, the methods are the only things that change.
--News at 11--
Re:Lines need to br drawn. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I suggest you don't hold your breath. Remember, we already changed the requirement for sexual harassment from what a reasonable person would find offensive compared to whatever the offended party finds offensive! (Not to mention that it's considered sexual harassment for a man to loom over a woman, but not for a woman to loom over a man. Why, because they have tits?)
I do think that we should be free to call another person an idiot, though. Especially when they are.
No respect (Score:5, Insightful)
Today in Canada on the on the hand, noone will send their kids anywhere until they are 12 (Canada is not the rest of the world, but they do believe here that they've got it right.) There is no chance in hell a kid could buy a bottle of alcohol and a pack of sigarrettes for his father. What the hell, why the hell not? Well, because the kids cannot be trusted here. Why is that? Well because they have no real consequences, no fear and no respect at all. Is it the kids' problem or the parents'? You can decide on your own about this one. But when you have kids with no respect for anyone, you'll have kids who will not understand reason and will be extremely selfish and will cause unnecessary difficulties and harm to others because they have no respect. Obviously the parents don't know what to do at all with kids like that, even worse, the parents will do everything in their powers to prevent their kids from facing any kind of consequences. When was the last time that a parent punished a kid for misbehaving at school, how about punishing the kid when they are rude to their teachers? The parents will prefer to side with the kid and even will attack the teacher and the school, maybe even will threaten with legal actions.
Why are parents afraid and unwilling to teach their kids good manners and respect to others? Maybe they are afraid of the kids themselves, scared of being accused by the legal system that they are abusing the kids? Proably this is part of the problem. Whatever it is, the conclusion is this: parents are not teaching their kids good behaviour, kids are not picking up any kind of good behaviour anywhere else either, kids become spoiled and even dangerous, since they don't have respect for others.
The truth is that children will be mean when they can be, they are basically mean animals until they become human (if it ever happens.) Thus there is bullying. But as someone else said, bullying always existed but it used to be real, not cyber. Maybe the answer to everything will be a completely disconnected cybersociety where people don't have to communicate with each other in reality?
Age ain't nothing but a number (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is people behave that way under the veil of anonymity (see the Penny-Arcade raving internet fuckwad theory). It isn't limited to any age group, nationality, race, etc. There must be a limiting factor, maybe sense of humor or intelligence, that prevents everyone on the internet from behaving that way. Or so I hope.
I don't think so (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't believe what they say, look to what they and society *do* and who gets rewarded or not for successful early childhood indoctrination. Look at the top class of Cxxs and political leaders, what do you see mostly? Aggressive alpha male and female bullies for the most part. They have to "win" all the time, the biz leaders have to "effin kill" the competition, their team (political party) has to win no matter what. The stockholders *demand* it, nore, more, MORE profits no matter what it takes, the grassroots political activist shock troops *demand* it, they have to destroy the competition,swift boat them for example, and exalt their own pack leaders, even to the point of ignoring or excusing blatant illegal or unethical behavior. Bullies get rewarded in our society if they adjust their bullying to the approved methods of the older adult bullies, so I don't believe they are really anti bully, although they make make noises about it.
Re:Lines need to br drawn. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Amen, sort of. (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know. To use my previous example, if some teen girl blogs about how she saw my daughter in a liplock with another girl at the mall, and my girl was home at the time, why is that not libel? Or if my son starts getting "anonymous" emails about how he's going to get his ass kicked Wed. after school, is that not assault (the threat, as opposed to battery, which is the act)? Even aside from the fact that it probably won't happen?
Re:I don't think so (Score:4, Insightful)
Yo, I got your line hanging right here (Score:3, Insightful)
One thing we've learned since Columbine, is that while it's an extreme example, it was not unique. I suppose, if we're willing to accept a school massacre every few years and dozens of individual killings, and thousands of student suicides, I suppose we don't really have to make an effort to teach our children that bullying is wrong.
The problem is that a lot of Americans don't really think bullying is wrong. We like it when we see a bully on TV, as seen by the popularity of people like Ann Coulter and Michael Savage. A bully in government, like Dick Cheney, is idolized by those on the Right who feel more comfortable when living under an authoritarian. Bullies in Abu Ghraib are considered macho by the Laura Ingrahams and Michelle Malkins of the world. Even in the unreal world of MMORPGs, what's the first thing a lot of players want to do? - Gank some noobs.
No, until bullying goes out of style, there will still be Columbines, and Virginia Techs. Its the price we have to pay for remaining an immature, atavistic culture. It's no surprise that, as we saw in New Orleans after Katrina, the least of our people are treated the worst, and no surprise that the divide between rich and poor continues to widen. One wonders how this can happen in a nation that prides itself on being "Christian". Somehow, the part of Christianity that dwells on humility, service and love got replaced with the desire to stick a boot up your neighbor's ass.
it's blatantly obvious (Score:2, Insightful)
the LOUDER and more frequently they say these words, the more adult-like they feel.
Re:Lines need to br drawn. (Score:2, Insightful)
It often depends on who you are, where you are, and how powerful/wealthy your parents are. Many inner city public schools are exactly the hells on earth that are depicted in movies, and using the term "bullying" to describe the literal crimes against humanity that occur in them would be ridiculous. Suburban public schools are usually somewhat better, but having attended what was considered one of the "best" public high schools in the state of Massachusetts, I can attest that over the four years I was in attendance that in addition to the usual teasing and harassment there were quite a number of incidents of serious violence. The idea of a "mutually agreed fight" is something I have never heard of at least in my educational experience - nearly all of the incidents of physical violence I witnessed or heard about were 20 on 1 assaults that often left the victim needing reconstructive surgery.
Anyone with any money puts their kid into a private school, where they certainly can't be assured that their child won't be the victim of merciless teasing, but at least private schools to some degree have more safeguards to prevent physical harm and have more stringent codes of conduct vis a vis expulsion, etc.
One also has to realize that in the US, high school violence is intrinsically linked with issues of drug use and race. High schools in America's large population centers contain diverse ethnic groups, and contrary to the 'melting-pot' utopia that everyone would like to believe, many of the teenage members of said ethnic groups really don't like each other very much. Add to that the enormous profits made on the drug trade inside US schools and the activities that go along with it and I'm surprised that many schools are as good as they are.
Re:I get misty... (Score:3, Insightful)
Since when did "increased physical pain tolerance" equate with "stronger?"
"I can't imagine being intimidated by some other dork's IM, e-mail, or MySpace post."
Simple: after your daily beating, stills and movies of your beating taken from cell phones ends up in said medium. Think of it as a pleasant little reminder while enabling exponentially more people to laugh at the way you start to cry.
"I miss the days before we had to have cops patrolling the hallways as if the kids were in prison."
Let's see: you're told what room to be in at what time, sometimes even what to where while there, and if the police spot you elsewhere when you're supposed to be present, legal problems ensue. When has it not been a prison?
"I miss the days when kids just got into a little fight and that was that. Now, parents sue each other or even go to jail."
People going to prison for assault and battery? Perish the thought!
"What's happened over the last 25-30 years? Maybe kids just need attention because their parents are addicted to the internet, drugs, work, TV, porn, or themselves?"
Or maybe, just maybe, they got sick of this "builds character/makes you stronger/kids being kids" bullshit and decided to employ the Great Equalizer instead of bending over and taking it like you did (while telling yourself that it was actually a good thing to do so)?
Or are you just jealous that you didn't have the spine and foresight they had to end things once and for all?
"How about we look at the root cause for all the violence?"
Checked the mirror lately?
Re:Lines need to br drawn. (Score:3, Insightful)