It’s a typical Tuesday afternoon. You’re sitting at your computer typing a paper for English class when you take a break to check your email and notice you have a new message from an address you don’t recognize. You wonder who may have sent it: a new friend from school or maybe that person you secretly like? As you open the email, your hopeful feelings melt away. The message is simple: “You are such a loser and I hate you.”
When something like this happens, it’s called cyberbullying. (You know, like the other kind of bullying, just with a fancier name.) Cyberbullying is when a person is threatened or harassed using the Internet, a cell phone, or any other interactive technology. It can be an inappropriate or humiliating text or IM message, unwanted or embarrassing images sent with cell phones, using someone’s email or Facebook password to view their private information, or impersonating someone online. Since young people have access to cell phones and computers at home or at school, cyberbullying is a little too convenient.
It is easy to resist being a cyberbully, just step away from the computer or the phone when you’re angry. It’s easy to write a hateful message when you’re mad, so turn off the devices until you’ve calmed down—or better yet, wait until you can talk face-to-face. It’s hard to be hateful when you can see the reaction of the person you’re hurting.
If someone is cyberbullying you, start by blocking them from contacting you and show the threatening messages to your parents who can report the problem to a website moderator or your Internet service provider. Whatever you do, don’t retaliate. Remember, even if someone else bullied you first, you will still be held responsible for any action you take in return.
A high school student recently told me about how a group of her classmates were using MySpace to write threatening and mean comments about her and her friends. She said, “The girls, they’re, you know, doing that thing where they type mean messages…” She couldn’t finish the sentence because she didn’t know cyberbullying had a name. When I told her what it is, we decided she needed to talk to the principal because the cyberbullying was happening from the school’s property, a computer in the library. The point is, this young woman needed to know that cyberbullying is real and unacceptable in order for her to take the steps to end it. Now that you know, you can protect yourself and let your friends know too!
Image © Tracy Whiteside | Dreamstime.com