You Wanna Take This
Online?
Cyberspace is the
21st century bully's playground
where girls play
rougher than boys
By JEFF CHU, time.com
from the Web August 10, 2005
What does 13-year-old Taylor Hern
love? Lots of things: the actor Ewan McGregor, the color pink, the
band My Chemical Romance, her boyfriend Alex. You would know all that if
you visited her Xanga, a blog -- home-page hybrid that is the modern teen's
public and interactive equivalent of a diary. You could even leave a
comment on her Xanga or send her an "eProp" if, say, you love Ewan McGregor too.
On April 18, Taylor, who is about to enter eighth grade at Lost Mountain Middle
School in Kennesaw, Ga., got an instant message (IM) from her friend Sydney
Meyer that said, "OMG [Oh, my God] OMG OMG go to your xanga." Someone
using the screen name lmmsgirlsgot2hell had left Taylor a comment that read, "Go
to my Xanga, bitch." Taylor did -- and found a List of Hos. Her name
was on it. The list was hurtful, but Taylor says she wasn't as bothered as
other girls. "A bunch of the cheerleading chicks spazzed," she says.
"Me and all my friends thought it was stupid. Who would actually make time
in their schedule to do something like that?"
Turns out, many of her peers would. Technology has transformed the lives
of teens, including the ways they pick on one another. If parents and
teachers think it's hard to control mean girls and bullying boys in school, they
haven't reckoned with cyberspace. Cyberbullying can mean anything from
posting pejorative items like the List of Hos to spreading rumors by e-mail to
harassing by instant message. It was experienced in the preceding two
months by 18% of 3,700 middle schoolers surveyed by researchers at Clemson
University. Their study is scheduled to be presented at this month's
American Psychological Association meeting. The phenomenon peaks at about
age 13; 21% of eighth-graders surveyed reported being cyberbullied recently.
And incidents of online bullying are like roaches: for every one that's
reported, many more go unrecorded. "Our statistics are conservative," says
Clemson psychologist Robin Kowalski. "Part of the problem is kids not
recognizing that what's happening is a form of bullying."
Online bullying follows a gender pattern that's the opposite of what happens
off-line, the Clemson study found. On playgrounds and in school hallways,
boys are the primary perpetrators and victims; online, girls rule. Nearly
a third of the eighth-grade girls surveyed reported being bullied online in the
previous two months, compared with 10% of boys; 17% of the girls said they had
bullied online, but only 10% of the boys said they had. Such stats get an
eye roll from teens. "Girls make up stuff and sooooooo much drama," Taylor
said (by IM, of course). "Drama queens."
On the Internet, you can wear any mask you like -- and that can be harrowing for
the victim of a cyberbully. A few weeks after the List of Hos was posted,
Taylor's classmate Courtney Katasak got an IM from someone using the screen name
ToastIsYummy. Courtney thought it might be a friend with a new screen
name, so she asked, WHO IS THIS? ToastIsYummy responded with teasing lines
and a link to a porn site. "Then they kept sending me these inappropriate
messages," she says. "I blocked the screen name so they couldn't talk to
me, but I didn't know who this person was or what they were trying to do.
It freaked me out."
"Anonymity emboldens the person doing it -- and it increases the fear factor for
the victim," says Kowalski. Parry Aftab, founder of an online nonprofit
called WiredSafety.org says teens "are exploring who they are -- and they
role-play by being mean, horrible and hateful in ways they would never be
off-line." Aftab recalls meeting a New Jersey 13-year-old with a
preppie-perfect appearance -- khakis, button-down shirt, penny loafers complete
with pennies -- and a creepy hobby of making online death threats against
strangers. He would gather information from chat rooms or people's
websites, then threaten them as if he knew them. Says Aftab: "He
said to me, 'I would never do anything in real life. I'm a good kid.
But I can do it online because it doesn't matter.'"
Actually, it does. When a cyberbully lashes out, it can be a sign of
emotional or psychological problems. And cyberbullying is viral. The
Clemson study found that kids who are victimized "seem to be heavily involved in
bullying others," says psychologist Sue Limber. In the real world,
physical intimidation may keep those who are bullied from retaliating, but
that's not a problem online. "Cyberbullying can also lead to other forms
of victimization," Limber says. If someone insults a classmate on a Xanga,
the effects could include ostracization at school. "Passing notes or
writing on lockers was nothing," says Limber. "This takes public to a
whole other level."
It can be especially embarrassing since cyberbullying often has sexual
overtones. "It's raging hormones, and 13 is the heart of it," says Aftab.
"We tell adults they can't operate heavy machinery under the influence.
These kids are under the influence of hormones 24/7."
A parent's instinctive response may be to apply an electronic tourniquet,
cutting off a teen's access. But experts agree that severing online links
is not the solution. "The Internet is no longer just an advantage. A
child is at a disadvantage not having it," says Brittany Bacon, an FBI-trained
WiredSafety.org volunteer. She says teens need to learn boundaries and
manners in cyberspace just as they must in other venues of society.
It's also the parents' responsibility to be aware of a child's life online.
"Kids know so much about the computer that some parents just throw up their
hands," says Patti Agatston, a counselor with Cobb County Schools'
prevention-intervention program in Georgia. "Don't do that," she says. I
nstead, parents should keep their eyes open. "Parents are totally clueless
that some of this even exists," Aftab says.
Taylor Hern's mother Caryn counts herself in that number. "I am absolutely
an idiot when it comes to that kind of stuff," she says. But Taylor's
cyberbullying experience convinced Hern that she had to get Net-savvy. She
has signed up for lessons from an expert: her son David, who is 19.
"You read about what kids do to other kids, but you don't think it's going to
happen to yours," she says. "Who knows what happens online after I go to
bed at 10? I need to find out."
Published in the Aug. 8, 2005 issue of Time Magazine
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