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Cyberbullying by Adolescents: A Preliminary Assessment
Educational Forum, The, Fall 2005 by Strom, Paris S, Strom, Robert D
Some sophisticated adolescent cyberbullies target schools or other institutions by releasing worms that can compromise the integrity of computers or make them unavailable. The result is often disruption leading to significant loss of time and money. The U.S. Department of Justice (2005) Web site www.cybercrime.gov lists prosecuted criminals and a summary of computer intrusion cases, including the juvenile or adult status of perpetrators, type of harm done, estimated dollar loss, target group, geography, and punishment. That list includes one hacker who directed worm-infected computers to launch a distributed denial of service attack against the Microsoft® main Web site, causing a shutdown and making it inaccessible to the public for four hours. The hacker was 14 years old and pleaded guilty in 2004 for intentionally causing damage and attempting to disable protected computers.
Solutions for Cyberbullying
What actions should be taken to reduce the scale of cyberbullying? State departments of education have begun to provide training for administrators in middle and high schools to build awareness of available options in confronting such problems. Other individuals at schools also should assume responsibility for prevention. The district's information technology staff members could be given the task of designing and delivering K-12 curriculum to acquaint students, teachers, and parents with etiquette on the Internet, methods of self-protection, and ways of responding to persecution. A related initiative would be to help the adult public recognize that adolescents interact with technology differently than older people. Most grown-ups think of computers as practical tools that can be used to locate information and send electronic mail without the expense of postage stamps. In contrast, teenagers consider instant messaging and chat rooms to be an essential aspect of their social lives-a vital connection with peers. Chat is the number one online activity among teenagers (Roberts and Foehr 2004).
These generational differences account for why few adults are able to provide wise counsel on dealing with cyberbullies. The solutions most often proposed are simplistic and result in minimal protection. For example, purchasing or setting online filters would appear to be suitable solutions because these preventive measures block reception of unwanted messages. However, by altering their screen names, bullies can override these obstructions easily. Responding to bullies online in an attempt to persuade them to stop the harassment also might seem to be a reasonable counter. Yet, student experience shows that this approach can motivate a bully to apply even more severe methods of intimidation (Cooper 2005).
Parents and teachers can follow some practical guidelines to minimize the likelihood of cyberbullying (Strom and Strom 2005):
* Adults should develop close communications with adolescents and encourage them to relate problems such as episodes of digital harassment.
* Students should be told not to share personal information, such as their e-mail password, with anyone except a parent.
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