New media = new bullying methods
Monday, September 14, 2009 by Katie
Recently my little sister (she's 12) has had a problem with being cyber bullied by some of her girl friends, they were so persistent texting her multiple times in short periods of time, and when that failed ringing our home phone non-stop! They weren't being particularily nasty but just hounding about a boy she had a crush on etc etc, typical kiddy stuff. It got me thinking about the effects of new media on children, because this is a problem that even my generation (I'm 20) did not have when we were young, and is something that we are yet to see the long term effects of.
What is worrying is the avenues now open for bullying, especially cyber bullying, gone are the days when bullying stopped as soon as you walked out of the school gate. Luckily for my sister she doesn't belong to a social networking site, yet she is a member of an online gaming site for kids (Miniclip) where there is a chat element enabled, allowing her to talk to, or in this case be bullied by friends. What are we meant to do? Ban children from new media until a certain age? This is obviously an overreaction but until things calm down between her and her friends this is what Mum has done, and currently seems to have solved the situation.
When looking into the issue of cyberbulling I found that in fact a New Zealand website is right at the forefront of net safety for kids: the aptly named Net Safe. They have great sections such as: 'What's Twitter', 'What to do if I am being text bullied', 'I am being cyberbullied what can I do?' and 'Don't believe everything you see, read or hear online', as well as a section for Parents which is good to check out if you're interested in this.
What is worrying is the avenues now open for bullying, especially cyber bullying, gone are the days when bullying stopped as soon as you walked out of the school gate. Luckily for my sister she doesn't belong to a social networking site, yet she is a member of an online gaming site for kids (Miniclip) where there is a chat element enabled, allowing her to talk to, or in this case be bullied by friends. What are we meant to do? Ban children from new media until a certain age? This is obviously an overreaction but until things calm down between her and her friends this is what Mum has done, and currently seems to have solved the situation.
When looking into the issue of cyberbulling I found that in fact a New Zealand website is right at the forefront of net safety for kids: the aptly named Net Safe. They have great sections such as: 'What's Twitter', 'What to do if I am being text bullied', 'I am being cyberbullied what can I do?' and 'Don't believe everything you see, read or hear online', as well as a section for Parents which is good to check out if you're interested in this.