How is the fact that our children (ok, my young siblings) are coming up in a world where bullying happens in a field vastly different from the playground not a problem?
I certainly can't pass on my experience of how to deal with cyber bullies, I don't have any(oh, but flamewars I understand), and I suspect that the entire newest generation is going to have to invent those protocols themselves. That's horribly unfortunate. When children kill themselves because of it, that's horrifying.
You're talking as if children are killing themselves over internet bullying left and right. The truth is this almost never happens and when it does is almost certainly bullying from the real world spilling over into the virtual.
The internet has opened a lot of doors and changed some of the rules, but I don't believe it has turned the playing field upside down as sensationalist news articles would like us to believe.
If anything, as the web has matured as a technology and as a part of life things are probably getting better, since the rules for how kids need to behave on the web are becoming part of the culture and not something their "pushy parents" are trying to convince them of.
Notice how the interviewed girls talk about giving false personal information and about how they promptly cut off inappropriate contact as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. I'm not sure this was the situation 10 or 15 years ago...
Bullying isn't solved on the playground. At least online the perpetrators document their aggression. Not that I believe that will solve anything, thought it might be fun to name-and-shame them.
Also, on the playground a bully will enjoy power by oppressing others in full view of their classmates. Authority and fear go hand in hand. Anonymity and the internet might make it easier to bully others but it also removes the pay-off. Somebody that bullies others online is wasting their time. If you do it, it's not a stretch for somebody else to point out that you're a bit of a 'loser'.
It's sad if children kill themselves because of this though. I've heard awful stories of people pretending to be a girlfriend/boyfriend, gaining trust and then humiliating the other person. You would have to be a little naive to fall for that but I don't think that's a lesson anybody should ever have to learn. However, I think that's an exception, kids will learn to not trust so easily in the virtual environment and to carefully control their virtual image.
This is something of a case in point for my argument that we really don't know how to deal with it..its brand new, and works on different dynamics than playground bullying.
The methods of cyber-bullying I've encountered doesn't involve a lone 'loser' barraging someone, but entire groups of quickly organized cliques continually harassing people.
And to be clear, they're not limited to terminal based Internet connections anymore, or even the Internet. A phone number is just as good as a chat account, and much less secure.
Comments
How is the fact that our children (ok, my young siblings) are coming up in a world where bullying happens in a field vastly different from the playground not a problem?
I certainly can't pass on my experience of how to deal with cyber bullies, I don't have any(oh, but flamewars I understand), and I suspect that the entire newest generation is going to have to invent those protocols themselves. That's horribly unfortunate. When children kill themselves because of it, that's horrifying.
You're talking as if children are killing themselves over internet bullying left and right. The truth is this almost never happens and when it does is almost certainly bullying from the real world spilling over into the virtual.
The internet has opened a lot of doors and changed some of the rules, but I don't believe it has turned the playing field upside down as sensationalist news articles would like us to believe.
If anything, as the web has matured as a technology and as a part of life things are probably getting better, since the rules for how kids need to behave on the web are becoming part of the culture and not something their "pushy parents" are trying to convince them of.
Notice how the interviewed girls talk about giving false personal information and about how they promptly cut off inappropriate contact as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. I'm not sure this was the situation 10 or 15 years ago...
Bullying isn't solved on the playground. At least online the perpetrators document their aggression. Not that I believe that will solve anything, thought it might be fun to name-and-shame them.
Also, on the playground a bully will enjoy power by oppressing others in full view of their classmates. Authority and fear go hand in hand. Anonymity and the internet might make it easier to bully others but it also removes the pay-off. Somebody that bullies others online is wasting their time. If you do it, it's not a stretch for somebody else to point out that you're a bit of a 'loser'.
It's sad if children kill themselves because of this though. I've heard awful stories of people pretending to be a girlfriend/boyfriend, gaining trust and then humiliating the other person. You would have to be a little naive to fall for that but I don't think that's a lesson anybody should ever have to learn. However, I think that's an exception, kids will learn to not trust so easily in the virtual environment and to carefully control their virtual image.
This is something of a case in point for my argument that we really don't know how to deal with it..its brand new, and works on different dynamics than playground bullying.
The methods of cyber-bullying I've encountered doesn't involve a lone 'loser' barraging someone, but entire groups of quickly organized cliques continually harassing people.
And to be clear, they're not limited to terminal based Internet connections anymore, or even the Internet. A phone number is just as good as a chat account, and much less secure.
Cliques of children harassing other children! What a new and amazing discovery! This is unprecedented! </sarcasm>