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 By Digital Frenzy - J. DesRochers

What is Cyber bullying? Cyber bullying is when a group of people or one person centers out another teen, child, or adult by sending emails, writing post, or putting up sites about you that degrade, contain death threats, hateful comments and other rude things that have a mental impact on other people’s lives. Cyber Bullying can be done through the Internet, or it can be done by text messaging.

Recently, I read an article on CBC news about a boy who was humiliated all over the web. A bunch of students who remain anonymous decided to create a site that was dedicated to him. The website contained hateful comments and slurs about the boy and one person even sent him an email that said “You’re gay, don’t ever talk again, no one likes you, you’re immature and dirty go wash your face.” The situation got so bad that the boy had to drop out of school and finish the rest of his year being home schooled. But this is just one example of Cyber bullying.

Another boy had made a video of himself pretending to do the well known movie “Star Wars”; when students got a hold of this tape they posted it on the web for all to see. Many people downloaded it (and still are today) and joined in on the so called “bully game”, adding sound affects making it a parody. What the boy thought was fun, turned out to be a living nightmare.

A recent survey that was done found out that 14% of young Canadians had been threatened while using messengers like msn and yahoo. The other 16% of them admitted to the fact that they were posting hateful comments themselves about kids, parents and teachers. Another survey says that 99% of Canadian students have used the internet. 48% say that they use it for at least an hour a day, and nearly 60% say that they use chat rooms and instant messaging.

In February 2007, nineteen students in Toronto that attended a catholic high school got suspended after bullying their principle. In Ontario students can be suspended for Cyber- Bullying thanks to the changes of the province’s Safe school act that came into effect just this year.

Most students that are in my grade eight class have a Facebook account or an account on Myspace . Facebook is for high school and college students, but public students are getting around this by simply lying about their age. 20 or more profiles containing public school students ranging in children 10 to 13 were reported to Facebook and those profiles have yet to be removed.

Just last year a 13-year-old girl hung herself in her closet, because she believed someone she had met on MySpace had turned against her and just recently a 17-year-old teen was charged for allegedly hacking into another teenager's myspace account and using it to threaten others.

Many parents are unaware of what their children are up to online. Parents need to pay more attention to what their children are doing online. All children should follow some sort of guideline when they are on the computer. After some research, I came across the following tips for children and teens using the internet.

Guard your contact information (Home phone number, home address, email, and the school you are attending ect .). Don’t give out your cell phone number our, your instant messaging name to anyone that you don’t know or friends that you don’t think you can trust.

If you are being harassed online or through text messaging, take the following actions immediately:

• Tell an adult you trust- a teacher, parent, sibling, relative ect .

• If you are being harassed leave the area or stop the activity (ex. chat rooms, online gaming sites, instant messaging, web cam, texting …)

• If you are being bullied through e-mail or instant messaging, block the sender’s message. Never reply to harassing messages.

• Save all harassing messages received, and forward them to your internet service provider. If the bullying includes any physical threats, tell your local police, don’t try to take it in to your hands.

A computer is a privilege and should not be used to abuse other people. The computer should be used with moderation and not as a toy.

Cyber bullying continues to grow more and more each day. Whether you are the victim or the one that is the bully, it should be stopped. After you look into the damage that can be caused by cyber bullying, I am sure that you will have even a stronger opinion on this problem, because I know I sure do.

Remember every one can make a difference, why not start today. When you are Cyber bullying you are abusing someone. When you stop, they are no longer a victim of your abuse.

Resources:

cybersting.ca

cbc.ca

Cyberbullying.ca

bewebaware.ca/english/CyberBullying.aspx

Digital Frenzy blogs at http://www.digitalfrenzy.net/ His blog features art, graphics, photos, poetry, and teen issues all from a teen’s perspective.

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