INTERNET
One in seven students suffer cyber bullying
19-05-2008
by Emmet Ryan
A new study by the Anti-Bullying Centre in Trinity College Dublin has found that one in seven Irish secondary school students are victims of cyber bullying.
The Trinity-based centre conducted the survey on behalf of the Irish Independent and RTE's 'Prime Time Investigates'. The aim of the report, which saw 2,790 young people interviewed, was to quantify the extent of cyber bullying in Ireland.
"People are aware that [cyber bullying] exists," Murray Smith, one of the researchers on the study told ENN. "We had parents getting in touch with us saying that their sons and daughters were being bullied through sites such as Bebo and Facebook as well as via [mobile phone] text messages."
The report found that girls were more likely to fall victim to cyber bullying than boys, with one in five female respondents claiming to have been cyber bullied. Smith said the Department of Education needed to update its bullying guidelines for schools to account for developments in technology. The current guidelines were established in 1993, before mobile phone and internet usage had entered the mainstream.
Cyber bullying can in some instances prove more damaging than traditional or offline bullying according to Dr Seamus Sweeney, special lecturer in Psychiatry at St Vincent's University Hospital, UCD. "Cyber bullying can have immediate and permanent consequences," Dr Sweeney told ENN. "People from outside a person's social circle can see it."
He said victims of cyber bullying could feel as though the universe they created online had been invaded. "For young people a Bebo page or a MySpace page is literally their space. It's a place to express themselves," said Dr Sweeney. He said that in some way if a student is being bullied at school they can get away from it when they go home at the end of the day but that it was more difficult to escape cyber bullying.
Dr Sweeney said schools should look to harness tools such as social networks in a positive manner. "It might be a good idea to devote some sessions in school towards educating students about social networks and internet usage," he said.
The episode of Prime Time Investigates that examines the results of the survey airs on RTE 1 on Monday night at 9.30pm.
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