Bully 4 U

In a post earlier this month called 'Dangerous Liaisons' I posed the question: What is the greatest danger for children using social networking services? 160 people responded to this question, and a pie chart of the results can be seen on the original post. It clearly shows that over a third of all those responding (36%) thought that cyberbullying was the biggest threat. Only 22% thought that paedophiles were a threat, with invasion of privacy (16%) the third highest concern.

Yes, I know that this was a simplistic survey, and I acknowledge that the question could have been better presented. But I did it because I am genuinely interested in e-safety and I wanted to provoke some kind of response to gauge whether others were as equally concerned. Judging by your responses, people are very concerned, some with the dangers children face when using social networks unthinkingly or without full awareness of the persistence of the medium. Others were more concerned about getting the semantics correct. Some thought that the problem was too complex to be addressed as a single problem. We need to acknowledge that there are problems when we use social networking tools. There are many questions. Do we behave differently when we use Facebook or Myspace? Do we reveal too much personal information? What do we do about the dangers children (our childen) face when they use social networks? (and they will - there is no stopping them despite school bans).

Yet the most interesting outcome of the survey was that cyberbullying emerged as the biggest concern. Bullying of any kind is destructive and can ruin lives, but cyberbullying may be the most insidious form. The pseudo-anonymity of the perpetrator is disturbing in itself, but cyberbullying is often very intrusive too. Children can escape from the school playground bully, but they find it harder to escape from the Facebook bully who invades their home, their desktop, their mind. Similar problems have emerged with mobile phones. Cyberbullying it seems, can affect almost anyone. What are your experiences with cyberbullying? Have your children or students been bullied through text? How did you handle it? Who can offer advice on how to address the problem of the cyberbully?

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