Cyber Bullying by Grainne Walsh (WEBWISE)
It’s not only in the playground or school yard that one can find a bully. Wherever two or more people are - at work, school, club or chatroom - there’s the potential for bullying. Cyberbullying is bullying by means of technology and a method of bullying rather than a new type of bullying. Most bullying of this kind on social network websites (SNW) seems to arise from arguments offline between peers and may move from abusive text messaging to a SNW site. Abusive phone calls have long been used to intimidate and harass, however with the ubiquitous use of the mobile phone, especially by children, and also the use of the Internet by young people and adults alike, cyberbullying provides a bully with another route to hurt a person.
We all have moved online, even the bully. Unfortunately it is easy to misuse technology to deliberately harass, ridicule, manipulate and torment another and easy for the cyberbully to hide behind a screen to carry out the bullying. The punch in the playground or the cruel comments in the canteen are in the here and now and will fade with time. Although cyberbullying as a form of bullying is not carried out in person but through the use of technology, it still can cause great distress and harm. Webwise.ie, the Internet Safety initiative of the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE), offers Internet Safety education and awareness resources for children and young people, their parents and their teachers and has a number of programmes to help address the issue of cyberbullying.
The Internet is now part of our lives, this is particularly true for teenagers who use social networking webspace as an extension of their social lives and daily activities. They are a generation who have grown up immersed in modern technology such as their mobile phone, instant messaging, webcams and their web-space on the Internet. Indeed, having access to the Internet and their social networking site has become an important part of life and their self esteem for them - no social life would be possible for many without their online social network; some would consider themselves social pariahs without their personal media devices and their ‘online friends’. However just as in the real world, online relationships can fall apart and feelings can become hurt and harassment and bullying can be a feature when friendship goes wrong. We teach our children and students that bullying is wrong and we now also need to help them develop strategies to recognise and avoid online harassment or cyberbullying. Schools, teachers and youth clubs can provide a forum to help young people to discuss the issues and to understand the consequences of bullying or harassing others online, what to do if they are being bullied and how to get help.
Be in Contol - What to do if you are being bullied
If you are being bullied whether cyberbullied or physically bullied the best advice is to talk to your parents, show them what’s happening, tell them how you are feeling and discuss the problem so that together you can take action. You are not powerless, there are steps you can take, together you can learn to Watchyourspace.
The NCTE teen website www.watchyourspace.ie was created to enable young people to take control of their online lives and give them advice and resources to deal with the fallout from misuse of mobile phones and social networking sites.
Watchyourspace.ie encourages the keeping of texts or chat comments to aid any investigation. It demonstrates how to access reporting routes to social networking sites and mobile phone companies and internet service providers. Watchyourspace shows you how to contact the Gardaí and the Hotline for the reporting of illegal use of ICTs. It also links to Childline Online to allow young people to make contact with a Childline counsellor if they would like to talk about a problem.
Be in Control
• Tell your parents or a trusted adult if you are being cyberbullied.
• Try to ignore the cyberbully and do not retaliate. This only feeds into the cyberbully and could make other people think you are part of the problem.
• Block the bully from your site.
• Save the evidence. Keep a record of every message but do not reply to any bullying messages. You don’t have to read and re-read their comments, simply save them in a folder named: Evidence.
• Show or give the record of the bullying messages to your parents.
• If the cyberbullying persists and gets worse, your parent or a trusted adult can: Report or File a complaint with the Web site, ISP, or mobile phone company. There is generally a link on the website’s home page for reporting concerns. Contact the Gardaí if the cyberbullying includes any threats.
Cyberbullying can seem more extreme to its victims because of several factors. Cyberbullying can occur day and night, 24/7 and may seem inescapable to a teen whose social life is mobile and online. It can follow the child home and occurs in the child's home, in their personal space. Being bullied at home can take away the place children feel most safe, even young children report that they receive hurtful and abusive texts in the middle of the night. Cyberbullying can be harsher than traditional bullying for often teens say things online that they wouldn't say in person, mainly because they can't see the other person's reaction. Teens can send comments, text or emails making fun of someone to their entire class or school with a few clicks and post them on a website for the whole world to see, forever. Cyberbullies often hide behind screen names and email addresses that don't identify who they are. Not knowing who is responsible for bullying messages can add to a victim's insecurity.
It may seem easy to an adult how to get away from a cyberbully- just get offline- but for some teenagers not going online takes away one of the major places they hang out with peers and socialise. Parents can help the child to keep relevant evidence for investigation and show them how to prevent it happening again by helping them:
- Change password and contact details.
- Encourage them not to give out private information such as passwords, pin numbers, addresses, phone numbers, or personal details. Even revealing your passwords to your friends is not wise; it could be used against you after a falling out.
-Help them create strong, secure unguessable passwords and change them regularly. We all should have separate passwords and pin numbers (including mobile pin codes) for each of our accounts.
-Show them how to ‘Sign Out’ of their Profile or account, not to stay logged in - closing the browser window does not mean you have closed out of your account.
- Blocking unwanted contacts, reporting abuse on site, to mobile operators or social networking providers.Following the advice on www.watchyourspace.ie in how to Report and what to Report will be a good way of regaining control. Ensure that your child knows not to retaliate or return the messages.
Most bullies feed off the response they get; not giving them one is a sign of strength.
-Encourage them to think before they post personal pictures online.Once posted it’s online forever, they will have no control over what others do with it. They need to be sure that they will be comfortable with you seeing it, or their grandparents, teacher or anybody seeing it, this week, next year or in 30 years time. They should not post pictures of others without their permission or give out their e-mail addresses or mobile phone numbers to people they meet on the Internet.
- Encouraging the child to keep personal information private online and to chat with known friends only. If they use instant messaging they should not accept messages from people they don’t know, they should not add people to their buddy list unless they know them personally. Personal and private information should be kept private as unfortunately it can be misused by bullies and other harmful people on the Internet, so they should use screen-names where possible and avoid posting identity revealing details about themselves or their family and friends.
- Help the child to use the onsite safety features. Each SNW will have safety settings, encourage users to apply them, setting a Profile to ‘Private’, selecting ‘Moderate Comments’ and reviewing posted details to check for the unwanted posting of personal information are some options to consider.
Cyberbullying is a most invasive and very public form of bullying. The potential size of the audience and its possible reach can add to the anxiety and misery of the child being bullied.
However help and support for teens is available at any time from:
Childline 1800-666666 www.childline.ie andSamaritans 1850-609090 www.samaritans.org
Cyberbullying as can be seen, differs in a number of ways from other kinds of bullying – the invasion of one’s home and private space, the speed and scale of its impact and the possibility of it resurfacing in the future. Nevertheless, it does make the act of bullying visible and it produces evidence in a way that other forms of bullying do not.
There are a number of different ways to keep evidence, depending on the method used to harass you, one can -
? save the text message and sender’s phone number:
- save the URL,
- copy the relevant pages,
- take a screen shot,
- print the page
Are you part of it – The Accessory?
Children who are cyberbullied report feeling angry, hurt, embarrassed and scared. Parents are naturally concerned, many are anxious about bullying and cyberbullying. In fact bullying in primary schools is the most common issue raised on the National Parents Council (NPC Primary) Helpline. With cyberbullying, parents will need to be aware that their child could be part of the problem. Even if their child has not begun the text or online bullying it's easy to become an 'accessory' by filling in a cruel online poll, forwarding a photo or ganging up on someone in an interactive games room. Parents will need to be able to discuss with their child whether he or she has been involved in cyberbullying and so will need to understand the language and the use of the technology by their children.
Parents’ guides to How to Bebo & How to IM can be found in the How to… area of www.webwise.ie and to help parents get to grips with their children’s use of technology the NCTE and the NPC have created //:Webwise_Parents:// a Parents’ Internet Safety Seminar. The NPC will arrange a free Internet Safety speaker for schools and details are available at: 01 – 8874475 and www.npc.ie
It is also important that teens understand what is and what is not, cyberbullying. One child’s joke may not be received as such, teasing and ‘slagging’ online may not be welcomed, but does that make either an example of cyberbullying? Nevertheless teens need to understand to think before they post, it is easy to unintentionally hurt another, and once online things can be amplified and cause great hurt. Many teens do not think of the consequences of their bullying behaviour, they are disassociated behind their screen from the impact their behaviour is having on the other person, many say they are only ‘messing’ or joking and think their online comments are funny. They may have a lack of awareness of their online behaviour and often teens say things online that they wouldn’t say in person, mainly because they can’t see the other person’s reaction. For the victim not knowing who is responsible for bullying messages can add to one’s insecurity and anxiety.
Are you part of it – The Bystander?
SNWs are communities and friends and peers online who witness the cyberbullying can encourage the child who is being bullied to get help from parents, from the school counsellor, principal, or a teacher and they can Report the bullying to the social network provider. Friends and bystanders too can support the child being bullied: - They can comforting the victim and support them. Speaking up in a calm supportive way, but not retaliating online will let the bullies know that their behaviour is being noted and not condoned.- Bystanders can speak up to a trusted adult, telling a teacher in school if a classmate is being bullied online in a school linked site.Bystanders have a critical role to play in creating an anti-bullying environment, on or offline. In a social networking website linked to a school this is an important role fellow students, especially older students can play. Parents and teachers can acknowledge the power of the bystander and encourage them to report an incident of bullying. Bystanders need also to understand that by observing the bullying and not taking action they are condoning the bullies’ behaviour.
eSafety Teaching & Learning
As children and young people are online we need to help them stay safe there as much as we do in the real world. The NCTE provides Internet Safety courses for schools and teachers. In collaboration with Social, Personal and Health Education (post primary) Support Programme a new teaching and learning eSafety programme //:Be SAFE_Be WEBWISE:// was devised and launched for Safer Internet Day 2008. The 13 lessons in the Junior Certificate programme address the personal safety issues and risk areas resulting from the advent of social networking and widespread use of the new media in the lives of young adolescents. The risks associated with disclosing personal information online, cyberbullying, social influencing online and the need for digital literacy skills are all explored allowing teens to discuss the issues and to become independent, autonomous and self-reliant Internet users for life.
A specifically designed module of in-service in the delivery of the Internet & Personal Safety lessons for SPHE teachers is being facilitated regionally by the SPHE Support Service. Inservice details available at: 01 – 8057718 and www.sphe.ie
Chatwise, Be WEBWISE! and //: Be SAFE_Be WEBWISE :// are personal safety teaching and learning programmes that will allow any classroom teacher to guide pupils and students to discuss and examine their own eSafety and personal safety online. The life-skills issues of personal safety, social responsibility, ethical and human rights issues raised because of Internet use by children and young people are addressed in the Webwise programmes. Through discussion and group techniques students will be able to learn from their peers and establish ethical codes of practice for themselves. All are available to schools, teachers and parents at www.webwise.ie/LearningResources The Cyberbullying Safety Topic of //Be SAFE_Be WEBWISE :// contains the 3 activities:
1. What is Cyberbullying?
2. Text Bullying
3. Posting Inappropriate Pictures.
It also has Background Notes on Cyberbullying for the teacher or youth club leader. Other useful information will be found at: www.coolschoolbullyfree.ie, www.abc.tcd.ie and www.cyberbullying.org.
Behind the comfort of our own screen we may forget that we are letting the world into our lives. We need to realise that online conversations are not private. Others can copy, print and share any comments or pictures we post. We can all have fun online but need to remember to be careful out there and to teach our children and young people to WATCH_YOUR_SPACE!
Gráinne Walshwww.webwise.ie
We all have moved online, even the bully. Unfortunately it is easy to misuse technology to deliberately harass, ridicule, manipulate and torment another and easy for the cyberbully to hide behind a screen to carry out the bullying. The punch in the playground or the cruel comments in the canteen are in the here and now and will fade with time. Although cyberbullying as a form of bullying is not carried out in person but through the use of technology, it still can cause great distress and harm. Webwise.ie, the Internet Safety initiative of the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE), offers Internet Safety education and awareness resources for children and young people, their parents and their teachers and has a number of programmes to help address the issue of cyberbullying.
The Internet is now part of our lives, this is particularly true for teenagers who use social networking webspace as an extension of their social lives and daily activities. They are a generation who have grown up immersed in modern technology such as their mobile phone, instant messaging, webcams and their web-space on the Internet. Indeed, having access to the Internet and their social networking site has become an important part of life and their self esteem for them - no social life would be possible for many without their online social network; some would consider themselves social pariahs without their personal media devices and their ‘online friends’. However just as in the real world, online relationships can fall apart and feelings can become hurt and harassment and bullying can be a feature when friendship goes wrong. We teach our children and students that bullying is wrong and we now also need to help them develop strategies to recognise and avoid online harassment or cyberbullying. Schools, teachers and youth clubs can provide a forum to help young people to discuss the issues and to understand the consequences of bullying or harassing others online, what to do if they are being bullied and how to get help.
Be in Contol - What to do if you are being bullied
If you are being bullied whether cyberbullied or physically bullied the best advice is to talk to your parents, show them what’s happening, tell them how you are feeling and discuss the problem so that together you can take action. You are not powerless, there are steps you can take, together you can learn to Watchyourspace.
The NCTE teen website www.watchyourspace.ie was created to enable young people to take control of their online lives and give them advice and resources to deal with the fallout from misuse of mobile phones and social networking sites.
Watchyourspace.ie encourages the keeping of texts or chat comments to aid any investigation. It demonstrates how to access reporting routes to social networking sites and mobile phone companies and internet service providers. Watchyourspace shows you how to contact the Gardaí and the Hotline for the reporting of illegal use of ICTs. It also links to Childline Online to allow young people to make contact with a Childline counsellor if they would like to talk about a problem.
Be in Control
• Tell your parents or a trusted adult if you are being cyberbullied.
• Try to ignore the cyberbully and do not retaliate. This only feeds into the cyberbully and could make other people think you are part of the problem.
• Block the bully from your site.
• Save the evidence. Keep a record of every message but do not reply to any bullying messages. You don’t have to read and re-read their comments, simply save them in a folder named: Evidence.
• Show or give the record of the bullying messages to your parents.
• If the cyberbullying persists and gets worse, your parent or a trusted adult can: Report or File a complaint with the Web site, ISP, or mobile phone company. There is generally a link on the website’s home page for reporting concerns. Contact the Gardaí if the cyberbullying includes any threats.
Cyberbullying can seem more extreme to its victims because of several factors. Cyberbullying can occur day and night, 24/7 and may seem inescapable to a teen whose social life is mobile and online. It can follow the child home and occurs in the child's home, in their personal space. Being bullied at home can take away the place children feel most safe, even young children report that they receive hurtful and abusive texts in the middle of the night. Cyberbullying can be harsher than traditional bullying for often teens say things online that they wouldn't say in person, mainly because they can't see the other person's reaction. Teens can send comments, text or emails making fun of someone to their entire class or school with a few clicks and post them on a website for the whole world to see, forever. Cyberbullies often hide behind screen names and email addresses that don't identify who they are. Not knowing who is responsible for bullying messages can add to a victim's insecurity.
It may seem easy to an adult how to get away from a cyberbully- just get offline- but for some teenagers not going online takes away one of the major places they hang out with peers and socialise. Parents can help the child to keep relevant evidence for investigation and show them how to prevent it happening again by helping them:
- Change password and contact details.
- Encourage them not to give out private information such as passwords, pin numbers, addresses, phone numbers, or personal details. Even revealing your passwords to your friends is not wise; it could be used against you after a falling out.
-Help them create strong, secure unguessable passwords and change them regularly. We all should have separate passwords and pin numbers (including mobile pin codes) for each of our accounts.
-Show them how to ‘Sign Out’ of their Profile or account, not to stay logged in - closing the browser window does not mean you have closed out of your account.
- Blocking unwanted contacts, reporting abuse on site, to mobile operators or social networking providers.Following the advice on www.watchyourspace.ie in how to Report and what to Report will be a good way of regaining control. Ensure that your child knows not to retaliate or return the messages.
Most bullies feed off the response they get; not giving them one is a sign of strength.
-Encourage them to think before they post personal pictures online.Once posted it’s online forever, they will have no control over what others do with it. They need to be sure that they will be comfortable with you seeing it, or their grandparents, teacher or anybody seeing it, this week, next year or in 30 years time. They should not post pictures of others without their permission or give out their e-mail addresses or mobile phone numbers to people they meet on the Internet.
- Encouraging the child to keep personal information private online and to chat with known friends only. If they use instant messaging they should not accept messages from people they don’t know, they should not add people to their buddy list unless they know them personally. Personal and private information should be kept private as unfortunately it can be misused by bullies and other harmful people on the Internet, so they should use screen-names where possible and avoid posting identity revealing details about themselves or their family and friends.
- Help the child to use the onsite safety features. Each SNW will have safety settings, encourage users to apply them, setting a Profile to ‘Private’, selecting ‘Moderate Comments’ and reviewing posted details to check for the unwanted posting of personal information are some options to consider.
Cyberbullying is a most invasive and very public form of bullying. The potential size of the audience and its possible reach can add to the anxiety and misery of the child being bullied.
However help and support for teens is available at any time from:
Childline 1800-666666 www.childline.ie andSamaritans 1850-609090 www.samaritans.org
Cyberbullying as can be seen, differs in a number of ways from other kinds of bullying – the invasion of one’s home and private space, the speed and scale of its impact and the possibility of it resurfacing in the future. Nevertheless, it does make the act of bullying visible and it produces evidence in a way that other forms of bullying do not.
There are a number of different ways to keep evidence, depending on the method used to harass you, one can -
? save the text message and sender’s phone number:
- save the URL,
- copy the relevant pages,
- take a screen shot,
- print the page
Are you part of it – The Accessory?
Children who are cyberbullied report feeling angry, hurt, embarrassed and scared. Parents are naturally concerned, many are anxious about bullying and cyberbullying. In fact bullying in primary schools is the most common issue raised on the National Parents Council (NPC Primary) Helpline. With cyberbullying, parents will need to be aware that their child could be part of the problem. Even if their child has not begun the text or online bullying it's easy to become an 'accessory' by filling in a cruel online poll, forwarding a photo or ganging up on someone in an interactive games room. Parents will need to be able to discuss with their child whether he or she has been involved in cyberbullying and so will need to understand the language and the use of the technology by their children.
Parents’ guides to How to Bebo & How to IM can be found in the How to… area of www.webwise.ie and to help parents get to grips with their children’s use of technology the NCTE and the NPC have created //:Webwise_Parents:// a Parents’ Internet Safety Seminar. The NPC will arrange a free Internet Safety speaker for schools and details are available at: 01 – 8874475 and www.npc.ie
It is also important that teens understand what is and what is not, cyberbullying. One child’s joke may not be received as such, teasing and ‘slagging’ online may not be welcomed, but does that make either an example of cyberbullying? Nevertheless teens need to understand to think before they post, it is easy to unintentionally hurt another, and once online things can be amplified and cause great hurt. Many teens do not think of the consequences of their bullying behaviour, they are disassociated behind their screen from the impact their behaviour is having on the other person, many say they are only ‘messing’ or joking and think their online comments are funny. They may have a lack of awareness of their online behaviour and often teens say things online that they wouldn’t say in person, mainly because they can’t see the other person’s reaction. For the victim not knowing who is responsible for bullying messages can add to one’s insecurity and anxiety.
Are you part of it – The Bystander?
SNWs are communities and friends and peers online who witness the cyberbullying can encourage the child who is being bullied to get help from parents, from the school counsellor, principal, or a teacher and they can Report the bullying to the social network provider. Friends and bystanders too can support the child being bullied: - They can comforting the victim and support them. Speaking up in a calm supportive way, but not retaliating online will let the bullies know that their behaviour is being noted and not condoned.- Bystanders can speak up to a trusted adult, telling a teacher in school if a classmate is being bullied online in a school linked site.Bystanders have a critical role to play in creating an anti-bullying environment, on or offline. In a social networking website linked to a school this is an important role fellow students, especially older students can play. Parents and teachers can acknowledge the power of the bystander and encourage them to report an incident of bullying. Bystanders need also to understand that by observing the bullying and not taking action they are condoning the bullies’ behaviour.
eSafety Teaching & Learning
As children and young people are online we need to help them stay safe there as much as we do in the real world. The NCTE provides Internet Safety courses for schools and teachers. In collaboration with Social, Personal and Health Education (post primary) Support Programme a new teaching and learning eSafety programme //:Be SAFE_Be WEBWISE:// was devised and launched for Safer Internet Day 2008. The 13 lessons in the Junior Certificate programme address the personal safety issues and risk areas resulting from the advent of social networking and widespread use of the new media in the lives of young adolescents. The risks associated with disclosing personal information online, cyberbullying, social influencing online and the need for digital literacy skills are all explored allowing teens to discuss the issues and to become independent, autonomous and self-reliant Internet users for life.
A specifically designed module of in-service in the delivery of the Internet & Personal Safety lessons for SPHE teachers is being facilitated regionally by the SPHE Support Service. Inservice details available at: 01 – 8057718 and www.sphe.ie
Chatwise, Be WEBWISE! and //: Be SAFE_Be WEBWISE :// are personal safety teaching and learning programmes that will allow any classroom teacher to guide pupils and students to discuss and examine their own eSafety and personal safety online. The life-skills issues of personal safety, social responsibility, ethical and human rights issues raised because of Internet use by children and young people are addressed in the Webwise programmes. Through discussion and group techniques students will be able to learn from their peers and establish ethical codes of practice for themselves. All are available to schools, teachers and parents at www.webwise.ie/LearningResources The Cyberbullying Safety Topic of //Be SAFE_Be WEBWISE :// contains the 3 activities:
1. What is Cyberbullying?
2. Text Bullying
3. Posting Inappropriate Pictures.
It also has Background Notes on Cyberbullying for the teacher or youth club leader. Other useful information will be found at: www.coolschoolbullyfree.ie, www.abc.tcd.ie and www.cyberbullying.org.
Behind the comfort of our own screen we may forget that we are letting the world into our lives. We need to realise that online conversations are not private. Others can copy, print and share any comments or pictures we post. We can all have fun online but need to remember to be careful out there and to teach our children and young people to WATCH_YOUR_SPACE!
Gráinne Walshwww.webwise.ie
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