Aussies to study ‘toxic’ cyber-bullying
p2pnet news | P2P:- Western Australian says it’s planning on spending A$400,000 on the world’s first five-year study into “toxic” cyber-bullying.
The news comes with, “growing concern about the damaging effect on children being targeted by abusive text messages, emails and degrading digital photos,” says Australian IT.
Up to 15% of WA students were victims of “vicious” cyber-bullying, which was generally anonymous and had potentially dire consequences, story has education minister Mark McGowan saying.
“Access to mobile phones and computers had increased the problem, with students using those technologies to ‘intimidate and harass in a way that has not been seen before’.”
The study will be headed by child behaviour expert professor Donna Cross from Edith Cowan University to examine the extent of the problem and ways in which children, parents and teachers can deal with it, and even prevent it, says the story, adding:
“About 4000 children from 40 schools will be involved in the study, and while WA will be the main focus, children from Queensland and South Australia will also be contacted to ensure the results were consistent with other states.
“We know with traditional bullying that children experience depression, anxiety, they’re socially ostracised, they have physical health outcomes that harm them, they drop out of school, they achieve less,” Cross said.
“But with cyber bullying it cranks up to a toxic cocktail.”
In Canada, the Canadian Teachers’ Federation says it’s concerned about Take-Two and Rockstar’s ‘Bully’ video game which, “glorifies, from our perspective, violence and bullying“.
Also See:
Australian IT – Study targets ‘toxic’ cyber-bullying, March 10, 2008
violence and bullying – Rockstar ‘Bully’ angers Canadian teachers, March 6, 2008
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March 10th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Adults don’t care enough to stop bullying in other places–why would they do any better here?
March 10th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Because it’s an easy excuse to censor the net and technology has taken it out of the hands of individuals so no one has to worry with it. That’s why theres not outrage about school bullying anymore, the fucked up care bears have moved on to the net because the lack of effort it takes to enact “change’.
March 13th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I live in Perth and teach internet safety in my school. We already teach cyber bullying. I have a program we used called isafe. It is very good. They give me results on my kids so I know how bad cyber bullying is. Anyone can sign-up at i-safe.org. It doesn’t cost the school any money to use. It would be better if we used the money to buy hard materials from isafe so I don’t have to download everything. Someone should really look into this. : )