Today it’s possible to work, play, socialise, shop, bank and express yourself creatively online as the virtual becomes the reality, and the ‘second life’, becomes in some cases not so secondary at all. With so many core functions now played out online, it makes sense that bullying would follow suit.

But in this case the medium truly is the message with the internet giving bullies relative anonymity, greater access, less accountability and the potential to cause their victims greater psychological damage.

"Yeah sometimes I get pretty bad hits on my msn and you can block them but then I know that they’ll just be there the next time," said 18-year-old Lisa* who has struggled with cyber bullies throughout highschool.

"It just makes me feel like they’re there in my room with me sometimes."

Donna Cross, professor of Child and Adolescent health at Edith Cowan University highlights the concern, saying: "We believe it will cause more harm than face-to-face bullying which as you may know can seriously harm young people physically, emotionally, socially, academically and mentally.  It is more harmful because it can reach young people 24/7; because it can be broadcast to a much wider audience and repeatedly over longer periods of time; there is no authority in cyber space to control this behaviour."

And it’s growing. As part of it’s ‘Delete Bullies’ campaign, in 2007 a Girlfriend Magazine survey together with Zoomerang found that 71% of participants knew someone who has been bullied online and furthermore, 42% don’t know where to report internet harassment

With the consequences only now being fully realised, the issue is at the centre of social and clinical debate, at The Royal Melbourne Children’s Hospital’s Centre For Adolescent Health’s recent ‘Warming Up Cyberia Conference’.

The conference reinforced the idea of the net as its own distinct social realm, and stressed the need for young people to learn to live within it as ethical citizens, rather than using it as a space to vent and carry out behaviour they’re not bold enough to unleash in the real world.

At a Melbourne boarding schools conference last year, Sen-Constable Susan McLean of the Victoria police shared the concern of the longer-term effects of cyber anarchy on young people, both on and off line. 

"If (the issue) is not promptly addressed, Victoria and Australia will run the risk of raising a cohort of children who have a distorted view of legal and moral accountability," McLean said.

At The RMCH conference, Key speakers Robyn Treyvaud, Director of CyberSafeKids & CyberSafeWorld, and Dr Sophie Reid PhD, Research Fellow and Psychologist, Centre for Adolescent Health, stressed this too. They believe that morality needs to be addressed as a blanket concern across the real and virtual worlds, and accountability must be on a similar level for both. Moral relativity, they found, is nothing short of dangerous.

Professor Cross is leading the pack on cyber bullying prevention, heading a world first, $400 000 study commissioned by the Western Australian Government into cyber bullying in Australia. The study aims to investigate the mental health implications of cyber bullying.

Cross said it will also try to raise awareness about the issue.

"It aims to develop, implement, evaluate, and disseminate a universal, whole-school intervention to enhance the capacity of parents, schools and students to deal effectively with the growing problem of cyber-bullying," he said.

The Government’s Net Alert campaign, together with specific cyber bullying wings of larger youth welfare organizations like Reach Out and Bullying. NoWay! also offer counselling and assistance to parents and children who have been victims of cyber bullying.

But the most pressing concern is still the need to acknowledge cyber bullying and the Internet as not just independent parts of children’s lives, but as active forces with the potential to shape how they’re lived in every sense and sphere.

* Name has been changed at the request of source.

Image by Straitic
Courtesy of Creative Commons