Technology gives new twist to age-old problem of bullying

Technology makes the world go round, but in high school, it can make a teen’s world come crashing down.

Bullying has long been a problem for schools, but with the addition of MySpace, Facebook, text messaging and instant messaging, the bullying doesn’t end when the school day is done. Now it goes home with them on their computers, leaving them to face a constant barrage of bullying in cyberspace.

“Bullying is bad,” Jim Shaw, Florence School District 1’s coordinator of physical education and substance abuse, said. “Bullying is a repeated behavior that is mean to hurt someone physically, emotionally or socially. Cyber bullying can be people ganging up.”

Although boys use technology to bully others, Shaw said, typically it’s girls who communicate in that manner.

“Whether bullying is cyberbullying or not, we need to be aware of this,” he said. “We need to think, what are the effects of this later in life?”

The policy for Florence 1 is to teach the students not only that certain behaviors are bad, but also how they should react in certain situations, Shaw said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently produced a report on electronic aggression that said anywhere from 9 to 35 percent of young people have been victims of electronic aggression, more commonly known as cyberbullying.

“Technology is not going away, and forbidding young people to access electronic media may not be a good long-term solution,” a tip sheet from the CDC Web site said. “Together, parents and children can come up with ways to maximize the benefits of technology and decrease its risks.”

The report defines electronic aggression as “any type of harassment or bullying that occurs through e-mail, a chat room, instant messaging, a Web site (including blogs) or text messaging.”

It also said children who are victims of electronic aggression are more likely to skip school, get into trouble at school and experience emotional stress.

Neal Vincent, principal of South Florence High School, said he has not seen any dramatic increase in the instances of cyberbullying in his school, although he knows it is happening in other schools across the country.

“I’ve had about six or seven cases of it in the last year,” he said. “I think it is just a new dimension. Unfortunately, it’s another resource students have to communicate and sometimes that’s not good communication.”

Vincent said he often reminds students that once something it written out and sent, it becomes permanent.

“The other person can print it out,” he said he tells them.

In the rare cases of cyberbullying he has had to mediate, Vincent said, he thinks it was helpful to bring the students face to face.

“With text messaging, you can make it anonymous,” he said. “One thing about text messaging and MySpace is that the students don’t meet face to face. They’re using passive ways to communicate.

“I think it is very important to bring students together. You ultimately want resolution.”

Vincent said he thinks of cyberbullying as being very similar to older methods of bullying — just a little easier to hide and done outside of school hours.

“It’s kind of like the old notepad thing, except that now it’s done on computers and cell phones,” he said.

For details on dealing with electronic aggression, visit the CDC Web site, http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/dvp/electronic_aggression.htm.