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ShareSAN JOSE, Calif. - Teenager Austin Stewart did something a friend didn’t like and the next thing she knew “a non-stop flood of hurtfulness” was posted about her on Facebook and other networking Web sites.
“It was all about how stupid I was - and a lot of stuff about my appearance,” said the 17-year-old, a former Palo Alto High School student. Being the object of an online attack - the Internet’s version of a schoolyard taunt or slam - isn’t new. And it wasn’t the first time it had happened to Stewart. But according to a nationwide survey released Wednesday, the number of kids who report being victimized this way, one in three, has become a rapidly rising concern for teens, parents and educators.
The survey of more than 900 teens ages 12 to 17, conducted by the Pew Research Foundation’s Internet Project, also found that the more time that kids spend online, the more likely they are to experience “cyberbullying.” The results also showed that users of social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook were more than twice as likely to be harassed online as those who didn’t log on to those sites.
None of that should come as a surprise, said Amanda Lenhart, the project’s senior research specialist. “Bullying is coming to you in the space where you spend time,” she said.
These days, instead of dirty scrawls in bathroom stalls, it more frequently might be a private e-mail or IM or text message that’s posted where everyone can see it.
That’s the most frequently mentioned of the four forms of cyberbullying that teens reported experiencing. Only slightly less frequent were the spreading of rumors online or being sent threatening messages.
What puzzled researchers at first was that 10 percent more girls than boys said they are more likely to be victims of such assaults. But the reason wasn’t hard to figure out: Girls are more likely than boys to hound someone psychologically instead of physically, Lenhart said.
Amy Brinkman, a local bullying prevention program director, said girls often are more subtle about aggression. And when they know they’re violating the unspoken social message about “being a nice girl,” she said, the anonymity of the online playing field emboldens “mean” girl behavior.
The venue may be different, Brinkman said, but the impact “is pretty awful both ways. And it’s faster on the Internet.”
Not only faster, but difficult to eradicate. With the ease of duplication and the reach of the Internet, “it’s harder to make mistakes and to feel like that won’t be something that will haunt you,” Lenhart said.
The survey revealed other differences between girls and boys - the biggest involving rumors. Girls said they were twice as likely to have been the victim of online rumor-spreading.
Ethnicity also appeared to be a factor. Nearly one in three white teens reported being bullied online more than offline, twice the percentage of African-American teens surveyed.
The Pew survey confirms other data that reflects a high incidence of cyberbullying among teens. In February, the Canada-based Media Awareness Network announced that its study of 5,200 students in grades 4-11 found that one in four of those students had been harassed over the Internet.
Canada is one of the most wired countries in the world, said Cathy Wing, Media Awareness Network’s acting executive director - and Toronto has the largest cluster of Facebook users in the world - 500,000.
Not only are Media Awareness Network’s speakers being asked to talk about cyberbullying at every major educators conference they attend, but provincial governments also are beginning to change education codes to include cyberbullying as an offense for which a student can be suspended or expelled, Wing said.
What concerns Wing is that the number of cyberbullied teens appears to be rising. Her organization keeps tabs on all on-going research studies - and she says the one in three figure is climbing.
Brinkman explained that reasons behind cyberbullying are the same as those behind any other kind of assault - “power.”
And the Internet casts an enabling cloak. When her friend posted messages, “she had the power of the Net behind her where anything you write can be seen by millions of people,” Stewart said.
She has seen that power directed at the most vulnerable victims. A friend of hers who was suffering from depression once received a public message suggesting she commit suicide. Stewart tried to find out who sent the message, but couldn’t.
Even now, she gets angry when she remembers the incident. “I think you should be able to see who it is at all times.”
