Cyber Cruelty: Understanding and Preventing the New Bullying

Abstract

As adolescents increasingly adopt cell phones, smart phones, and the Internet as tools for communication and social networking, they can become victims of the growing trend of cyberbullying - targeted harm inflicted through such technology. These forms of technology are often strange and unfamiliar to parents, teachers, and medical and mental health providers. This review article provides an introduction to cyberbullying, tools for screening, and opportunities for prevention. A mother brings her middle school student to a therapist because he is skipping school and isolating himself in his room; on interview he reveals he has been receiving threatening text messages and insulting MySpace comments from peers at school. A high school girl has been cutting herself with a razor and purging, and reveals to the clinician that a year ago her ex-boyfriend circulated a naked photo of her throughout her school. A young client's mother asks the therapist how to confront racial slurs that the client's classmates are posting on his Facebook page. These case scenarios underscore the ways in which clinicians are increasingly confronted with cyberbullying. The rapid worldwide adoption of the Internet, cell phones, and other new technology in the past two decades has revolutionized business, education, and sharing of ideas, religious or political beliefs, or sexual identity. Young people have become the Cyber Immersion Generation, as cyber technology becomes central to their daily life (Englander and Muldowney, 2007). The dark side of this useful technology is the rise of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying has been difficult to consistently define, due to constantly changing technology, but involves targeted harm inflicted through the use of text or images sent via the Internet, cell phones or other communication devices. It includes embarrassing or threatening text messages or instant messenger (IM) messages, electronic stalking, password theft or masquerading as another young person on social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook, distribution of embarrassing or sexual photographs or video (including sexting - sending sexually explicit photos via text message - and posting online footage of fights and assaults), creation of websites or Facebook pages devoted to criticizing one teen or to ranking the fattest or sluttiest kid in school, and even death threats delivered online. Teachers and administrators may even find themselves targets.