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ONE IN SEVEN adolescents have been subjected to cyber bullying in the last three months, according to research due to be presented at a conference in Dublin later this week.
The data also found that one in 11 admit to cyber bullying other people in the same time frame. At the conference, Dr Stephen Minton, lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, will discuss the levels of cyber bullying and cyber-aggression, which appear similar in both boys and girls, particularly in young teenagers. The behaviour also tends to peak in adolescents who are around 13-years-old.
Gender differences are actually very small in terms of cyber-bullying. Exclusion-type bullying is always more prevalent among females than males, and the physical forms of bullying are always more prevalent among males than females, but in terms of cyber bullying, it is roughly even for most categories.
Most of the data relates to 13 to 16-year-olds and while Minton stressed it can’t be said with confidence whether children grow out of this, experience working with young people, teachers and parents would seem to suggest it is a difficulty most associated with the early teenage years.
Minton did comment that he feels certain social media sites have made “substantial improvements” but said others continue to allow cyber bullying “while affording the perpetrator relative anonymity”.
Many young people are unaware of what behaviour constitutes cyber bullying, he explained, calling on parents to monitor their children’s online activity, adding that recent cases of suicides linked to cyber-aggression demonstrate the potential consequences.
This research will be presented at the British Society for Paediatric and Adolescent Rheumatology conference at Dublin Castle on Thursday and Friday.
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Social networking sites make it easy for bullies to breed. Gang mentality is rife, because it’s easy to hide in the web. Adults are not much better in fairness.
True indeed, but adults are hopefully better equiped to deal with it.
In terms of kids, some parents are excellent at monitoring their kids online activity. Some kids are excellent at hiding it….
I don’t see a solution in terms of genuinely stopping online bullying, it really does start and end with the parent/child relationship and being open and smart as a parent IMO. Not going to pretend that that’s a comprehensive opinion but I think it goes a long long way.
Cyberbullying isn’t real bullying, you can just block and ignore and its only words, parents need to educate their kids to toughen up a bit
Have to agree with you, people take everything to heart these days! Kids need to stand for themselves not cry about it!
Pity someone didn’t tell those two poor girls who took their own lives because of cyberbullying in the last two years. You are half right, cyber bullying isn’t the same as regular bullying which stops when the kid gets home. Cyber is relentless and can happen 24hrs a day. Wise up and do some research before making generalised statements.
I think it’s easier for adults to walk away. Social media is like a big classroom for teenagers. They get stuck in it, their lives revolve around it and don’t walk away. I’m sure up front bullying is easier to deal with, it’s the more insidious bullying that seems to creep in slowly and be the most devastating. Often fake profiles lure kids into a false sense of security, or kids are flattered by a good looking boy/girl giving them attention, usually set up by other teens to take the pi!s. Some of the worst cyber bullying seems to be months in the making.
You can’t walk away from cyberbullying, blocking doesn’t work (it takes a kid what, 30 seconds to create a new account and continue the bullying?). Also, blocking everyone or not using the social network is a lot to ask to a child, you are asking him or her to voluntarily isolate themselves from their peers? This does not work either. Cyberbullying is as real as it gets. Only a fool would ignore it like that and proclaim that it is just a matter of ‘standing for oneself’.
There has been a lot of controversy about the website Ask.fm over the past few years and the suicides that have been linked to it. What I can’t understand is if it a place where some people get bullied then what the hell are they doing on the site? If I don’t want to get mugged I don’t walk down dark alleys at night likewise if people I don’t want contact with on the internet annoy me I block them out.
Another thing that parents should be aware of is that sometimes the bullying messages are actually a cry for help from the person involved. Hannah Smith is reported to have sent 98% of bullying messages to herself. I can only presume that she had hoped that her parents would see them and see that she was troubled. This highlights the ongoing need for parents to monitor their children’s access to the internet on an ongoing basis.
Hadn’t heard thay about the Hannah Smith case. Poor girl.
You don’t understand kids. And you don’t understand the problem.
The problem isn’t Ask.fm or any other specific site, the problem is I want to be part of what my friends are part, and participate. So I go out to those sites like all my friends, and there I get bullied. What you are asking the kid to do is to isolate him/herself from their friends, because of fear of bullies.
Emilio if you want to follow the herd and get attacked by wolves it just goes to show that you really don’t have the maturity to be on the internet unsupervised at the moment.
Tks Brian.
Brian, can you actually read? Considering I am nearing 40, not too sure where my maturity regarding using the internet falls. Your statement confirms my first line, you don’t understand kids. For a kid the world is the herd. Get that? Or are you too mature to put yourself in the shoes of a 10 year old?
Emilio firstly could you point out where in your post that you mentioned that you are nearing 40 years old? You wrote “I want” “My friends” “I go” “I get” so it would be a reasonable assumption to assume that you ware writing about yourself without first clarifying your position. So I think that it is fair to say that my reading skills haven’t deteriorated significantly overnight.
As for understanding children and herd mentality I have the academic qualifications to back that up and understand quite it well hence my comment that if someone like the person like you describe in your (now explained) post has that attitude then the have not yet matured. Your last line is most intriguing “What you are asking the kid to do is to isolate him/herself from their friends, because of fear of bullies.” What do you propose? Allow the child to associate with people and expose them to unnecessary danger? Why not let them join a gang or stay out until all hours of the night and run wild. I would prefer to have an isolated child sitting at home rather than than allow them unchecked to do what ever they want without the proper guidance in life. No one is talking about locking up their child until they are 18 but they need to know how to make informed decisions and how to protect themselves before they are given greater independence.
Curiosity is something we associate with teenagers = of course they will keep checking to see if they are mentioned. If you suspect there is something about you online you will look – does not matter what parents say. Kids have the means. Looks like Ask.fm has a lot to answer for.
Brian, so you are suggesting kids shouldn’t socialise until they have matured enough? I think you live in lala-land.
Bullying needs to be addressed in every shape and form. Adults get bullied every day in this country. I was sacked because I highlighted organised bullying in a large multinational with my peers. They knew there was a problem for a long time and they did not want to deal with it.
That is a harsh stock image!
Michelle …. did you just photoshop ?
Imagine if I did! No, it’s a stock photo, I did not interfere with it in any way.
Lol
Cyber bullying effects people in a totally different way to traditional bullying. People on social networks tend to put out what they want to be rather than who they are in day to day life. It’s almost like we have two personalities online and offline, so when this online personality is attacked it can be more detremental to the person more quickly than traditional bullying. Internet safety in general should be ok the school curriculum from primary school up.
I have young kids but until they are at least 16 I will make sure I have access to all their online accounts and will mostly insist that they don’t give out their real names etc. on line school bullying can be dealt with in the real world if kids are stupid enough to leave a digital footprint. the tech gap ought to have slowed down by now compared to the last decade, it comes down to parents behaving like parents.
I don’t know if that stock image is going to help matters!! ;)
Yeah good luck with that. The likelihood of your kids giving you access to their social networking is slim. Kids have access to computers at secondary school, at libraries at friends houses etc. The major of teens have more than one facebook account, how will you regulate them if you don’t know about them? At 16 your teen is two years from being an adult and going it alone in college.
There are ways. I have passwords to my child’s “devices”. I can check them anytime I like, which I do. If she ever refuses to hand them over ill take them off her, simple! The key is for older parents to educate themselves. Get on social media, understand how it works. Keep an (online) eye on them!
Bang on , I have a colleague with a teenage girl and that exactly the strategy they use, its clear that her friend’s parents are not so diligent as they clearly don’t mind their kids leaving abusive or sexually explicit comments on their facebook accounts.
The objective of parents as I see it is to instil a sense that a child’s online activity will have a bearing on their reputation now and in the future (future employers etc. perhaps) and somehow the narcissistic excesses of recent year needs to be curbed.
Yes agree. I would read any of my children 22,19,19 and 13 the riot act if I thought for one second they were leaving abusive or sexually explicit comments on a facebook page. I think there has to be some trust regarding social media but equally boundaries should be set. Parents do need to learn about social media and how it works. And as usual communication is key. Teaching children how to deal with and report cyber bullying should be dealt with in school and at home from firat year on.
What do people expect, you also get bullied in real life too and especially in the work place, get use to it and get over it.
right so, so a 14 year old has the same issue as a 24 year old in the work place….jesus wept!
Jazz is a troll.
Don’t feed the troll!
A digital footprint is made the day an account is set up. Watching a cyberspace documentary recently and the expert could tell where a girl lived and went to school just by checking her friends list. Took him less than a minute. If you have ever commented on anything online it’s accessible, forever.
Why are kids allowed social networking profiles? In my day the only time you were allowed on the computer was when you had to look up something for schoolwork and even that was supervised!
Social and Emotional Literacy is part of the SPHE curriculum in schools but unfortunately the importance of this section of education is not clearly understood, and it is deprioritised in time favour of the three r’s.. So its not a bad idea for parents to look into this along with educating themselves on social media.. SEL (if implemented correctly) can give children the necessary skills to fully understand how their behaviour impacts on others, how to manage themselves and if necessary devise a correct course of action if they are targeted.. It dilutes unhealthy conditioning and gives children a method of developing their own wisdom and thinking skills. A very effective SEL program was ran in the states and the results speak for themselves. Adults cannot end child bullying, not online, not offline, but they can help the children learn the skills they need to eliminate it or at least lessen its impact on the id.
*their identity.
That’s right kids can access their online accounts easily, create many fake ID (s) and keeping them away from all their friends or part of the ‘herd’ feeling is not good parenting. These cyber bullying who often are not as rude as they are online requires ‘finding out’ otherwise they wouldn’t never stop. Most cyber bullies think they will not be found (within the age group of 13-16) and this is where parents must play their role with proper monitoring. They can install cell phone monitoring tools like Mobile Spy ( http://www.retinax.com/mobilespy/ ) to record and log smartphone activity and stop critical damage from taking place.
People should look at online bullying as good thing for once us victims can get those people back all the info sent can be saved and traced back some bullys might use some one else device in general I say we can catch them.
But the problem with bullying is and always has been the lack of response. In school we all knew who the bullies were, but nothing was ever done. Bullies weren’t anonymous ninjas.
Have kids and their parents not heard of the anti bully app.? It’s free, easily installed and works on all devices. It’s called the off button.
Very well spotted young man. Personally I have fun with the so called bullies. In the gaming world they are rife. Often mid to late teens. More often than not they are good at what they do in game and have no patience for the likes of me who likes to potter about or for others who are “noobs”. It is interesting to listen to the absolute rage that emanates from their texts and occasionally from in game chat. There is an interesting one on you tube in Call of Duty that is so funny it split my sides laughing. It’s called angry girl gamer worth a look. But this gentleman is absolutely right the On/Off switch works really well as does closing an account. Oh and you can wipe out a trail of on line posts if you want to. The only thing is after 20 years on line I have forgotten most of my personas anyway.
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