Publication Date: Wednesday, March 23, 2005
You've got threats
You've got threats
(March 23, 2005) Online bullying among teens a growing concern
by Alexandria Rocha
Earlier this year, a local high school student was placed under a restraining order for sending another teen hundreds of instant messages via the Internet.
In a separate incident last June, a Gunn High School teacher found thousands of racist messages crowding her work e-mail account. Although the suspect was never identified, school officials and police believe it was a student disgruntled over a grade.
Such incidences are examples of a new phenomenon called "cyberbullying." The days when adolescents and teenagers passed mean notes in class and picked on each other on the playground are being joined by quick and accessible text messages utilizing cell phones, e-mails, instant messages and Web blogs.
"This is a new form of bullying that could grow," said Joe DiSalvo, principal of Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School. "I think most parents would be surprised at what their children are saying and doing electronically."
Cyberbullying messages range from sexual innuendos to name calling to flat out put-downs.
Some experts say the phenomenon is expanding because of the widespread use of technology among today's youth.
According to a NOP World Technology study released earlier this month, almost half, or 44 percent, of 10- to 18-year-olds own a cell phone in the United States. The figures are also staggering for youth instant message use. According to a 2003 Pew Research Center study, about 13 million youths have Internet accounts with instant messaging.
In Palo Alto, where most kids grow up with computers and get their first cell phone in middle school, the risk of cyberbullying is even greater -- they're technologically adept.
Rather than pick up the phone or take a bike ride to relay a quick comment to a friend, they send a text or instant message or e-mail. In essence, it's "instant" gratification.
"Whenever I don't feel like picking up the phone, I use a text message because it's easier and I'm like, 'What's up?'" said eighth-grader Colleen Clayton, 14.
When asked how often they use text and instant messaging, Jordan Middle School eighth-graders Angelina Marriott and Grace Morrison locked eyes, laughed and in unison said, "All the time."
With the convenience of technology, kids are forgetting to think before they act, said Scott Laurence, principal of Palo Alto High School. Cyberbullying, especially with Web blogs, has taken the place of "slam books" -- notebooks passed around a school where students wrote answers to various questions, some defaming, others praising, he said.
Slam books, however, were simpler to contain, he said.
"It's becoming easier and easier in society to use shortened messages to get across our opinions, when in the past it took more passage of time," Laurence said. "The speed of communication and the ease has all sorts of positive aspects, but it does have a downside."
It's also the anonymity of cyberbullying that's attractive, according to school officials. Adolescents who bully don't have to witness the effects on their victims if it's done online.
Because instant messaging -- or "IM-ing" as most kids call it -- is done with a screen name, it lends itself to anonymity. Screen names are often humorous and reflect some aspect of the person's interests, such as music or sports. The user's identity, however, remains a mystery.
"I am confident that a situation such as what happened last summer would not have occurred if the person writing were not behind a computer," said Gunn High School Principal Noreen Likins, regarding the racist e-mail attack. "Somehow the use of a computer seems to give a person the notion that he or she is anonymous."
Adam Zernik, 13, said kids make up screen names regularly as a means to gossip anonymously about their peers.
"It happens all the time. People make up screen names and say stuff about other people," said Zernik, who was a victim of cyberbullying online last year. "It's mostly just calling people bad names because they're too scared to do it in person."
Asked to recall the nature of the bullying, Zernik said he couldn't remember.
Alice Wertheimer, 14, said kids at Jordan do not necessarily use text messaging and IM-ing to bully each other, but admitted it's a popular way to gossip or start rumors. For example, who broke up with whom over the weekend.
Sheila Tabrizi, 13, and Monet Lane, also 13, said friends frequently play pranks on each other by sending out messages from each other's phones and IM accounts.
The difficulty in battling cyberbullying is that it usually flies under the radar of parents and teachers. If a child is bullied on the Internet or through a cell phone, they keep quiet so they won't be barred from the computer or have their phone taken away. Since the kids are often nowhere near each other when the bullying occurs, it's impossible for an adult to spot a conflict.
Complicating matters, IM-ing and text messaging employ shorthand codes and acronyms that are impossible to decipher if you're out of the loop.
IM-ing and text messaging are central to this - there are hundreds of codes and acronyms used to shorten the length of words and phrases.
For example, "GTH" is go to hell, and "TDTM" is talk dirty to me.
"E-mail and IM-ing lend themselves to short snippy comments," said James Steyer, a professor at Stanford University and founder of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization about media for kids and parents.
Cyberbullying may be hard to identify, but there are ways to protect against it.
Two of Pamela Hornik's children, ages 9 and 7, set up Web blogs or online journals about five months ago. Before allowing them, however, Hornik and her husband bought software to keep the blogs private.
"My kids' blogs aren't open to anyone to see. They're for our family and for our friends," she said. "Nobody else other than the people we give the password to can access it. I have control over it."
The Horniks set the blogs up in this way mainly for safety, rather than to guard against cyberbullying.
Whether it's a Web blog, personal cell phone or instant message account, blocking certain users from sending messages is an easy alternative to taking the media away entirely, say some school officials. Kids, however, don't see blocking as solid protection.
"Even if you block someone, if they want to (bully you) badly enough, they can just make up another screen name and still do it," Zernik said.
The biggest lesson in cyberbullying is for parents to communicate with kids about the issue whether or not they think it's occurring, Steyer said.
As Laurence puts it, "Our responsibility is to talk about responsibility. I have a 15-year-old and I tell him, you're responsible for what your words mean. I hope it translates to him on the phone, on the computer."
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