Part 1

In a so­ci­ety that is grap­pling with the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of the rapid pace of tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ment, Cy­ber­bul­ly­ing has emerged as a se­ri­ous is­sue for the youth and ed­u­ca­tion sec­tors. Cy­ber­bul­ly­ing can be con­sid­ered a rel­a­tive­ly new phe­nom­e­non though youths have been bul­ly­ing their peers for gen­er­a­tions through vary­ing forms (eg: ver­bal­ly–name-call­ing, teas­ing, threats; phys­i­cal­ly–punch­ing, trip­ping, kick­ing; so­cial­ly–leav­ing out, ig­nor­ing, spread­ing ru­mours; psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly–giv­ing dirty looks, bad-eye or cut-eye, or be­ing stalked.) The lat­est gen­er­a­tions of youths have been able to bul­ly oth­ers us­ing new tech­nolo­gies.

Cy­ber­bul­ly­ing is the la­bel that refers to a per­son be­ing will­ful­ly and re­peat­ed­ly harmed, tor­ment­ed, threat­ened, ha­rassed, hu­mil­i­at­ed, em­bar­rassed or oth­er­wise tar­get­ed by an­oth­er per­son through us­ing in­for­ma­tion, com­mu­nica­tive and elec­tron­ic/dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies such as the In­ter­net and mo­bile de­vices.

It pre­dom­i­nant­ly oc­curs via the In­ter­net through e-mails, blogs, posts, videos on so­cial me­dia Web sites (Face­book, Twit­ter, YouTube, My­Space, etc) and in­ter­ac­tive de­vices (mo­biles) through text mes­sages and in­stant mes­sag­ing. These are used to ag­gres­sive­ly and in­ten­tion­al­ly harm some­one.

Cy­ber­bul­ly­ing tran­spires when three com­po­nents in­ter­sect: teenagers, tech­nol­o­gy and trou­ble. This per­fect storm man­i­fests in­to the will­ful, re­peat­ed harm in­flict­ed on a per­son us­ing com­put­ers, cell phones and oth­er elec­tron­ic de­vices. Cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, an old prob­lem in a new guise, is a se­ri­ous is­sue in T&T and is rapid­ly be­com­ing an epi­dem­ic in more sub­tle and pre­vail­ing forms with­in the na­tion's schools.

The cy­ber world is part of the re­al world and can­not be viewed sep­a­rate and apart as bul­lies pos­sess sim­i­lar mo­tives for their de­lib­er­ate and hos­tile be­hav­iour that are mul­ti­ple and com­plex. They in­ten­tion­al­ly in­flict harm and put fear in­to oth­ers un­der the cloak of anonymi­ty as cy­ber­bul­ly­ing is covert in na­ture.

These cy­ber­bul­lies have the need to feel em­pow­ered, pop­u­lar, su­pe­ri­or or are be­ing so­cial­ly pres­sured by their so­cial col­leagues or have been vic­tims of bul­ly­ing them­selves. Like­wise, for oth­er cy­ber­bul­lies, their mo­tives may dif­fer; some are of­ten mo­ti­vat­ed by anger, re­venge or frus­tra­tion, oth­ers do it to de­fend them­selves or tor­ment oth­ers. Some even bul­ly oth­ers for en­ter­tain­ment or may have done it by ac­ci­dent with­out con­sid­er­ing the con­se­quences.

Cy­ber­bul­lies de­lib­er­ate­ly harm oth­ers by name-call­ing, mak­ing an­gry/vul­gar/abu­sive com­ments, send­ing/post­ing cru­el/in­sult­ing mes­sages, spread­ing ru­mours/threats, post­ing rude or up­set­ting im­ages, re­veal­ing se­crets or em­bar­rass­ing in­for­ma­tion, in­ten­tion­al­ly ig­nor­ing/ex­clud­ing some­one, or en­gag­ing in on­line im­per­son­ation–pre­tend­ing to be some­one else to dam­age the rep­u­ta­tion of some­one by steal­ing their pass­word.

The ben­e­fits of tech­nol­o­gy in ed­u­ca­tion are un­de­ni­able and su­per­sede their vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties to cy­ber at­tacks. As a re­sult, bul­lies are aware that cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, be­cause of its covert na­ture, can be dif­fi­cult to de­tect. Nev­er­the­less, par­ents and teach­ers need to look out for any overt changes in a child's be­hav­iour which may give some clues that the child is be­ing bul­lied.

These signs may in­clude: un­usu­al re­duc­tion in so­cial­is­ing with friends/fam­i­ly, avoid­ance of school, drop­ping out of recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ties, sud­den aver­sion to us­ing In­ter­net or mo­bile de­vices, ner­vous when mes­sages/e-mails are re­ceived, change in sleep­ing pat­terns, ab­nor­mal nail-bit­ing or ex­hibit­ing self-harm­ing be­hav­iour or sud­den change in mood and ac­tions.

Do you re­mem­ber in tra­di­tion­al days, the old school yard adage, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words alone will nev­er harm hurt me?" In this tech­no­log­i­cal world, the state­ment sounds a lit­tle an­ti­quat­ed be­cause the child on the re­ceiv­ing end is af­fect­ed by the cru­el words or name-call­ing.

The child to­day, as a re­sult of be­ing cy­ber-bul­lied, may be­come para­noid, em­bar­rassed, trapped, frus­trat­ed, dis­tract­ed, ex­pe­ri­ence de­pres­sion, sad­ness, anger, anx­i­ety, stress, low self-es­teem, loss in con­fi­dence–all of which can pro­pel him or her to par­tic­i­pate in de­viant be­hav­iour, use of il­le­gal sub­stances in­clud­ing al­co­hol or have thoughts of sui­cide that can fur­ther neg­a­tive­ly af­fect fam­i­ly, peers, school and the com­mu­ni­ty as a whole.

Cy­ber­bul­ly­ing has the po­ten­tial to in­volve pub­lic hu­mil­i­a­tion and em­bar­rass­ment across a wide vi­ral au­di­ence that is en­dur­ing in na­ture. The bul­ly­ing be­hav­iour can be in­va­sive as the bul­ly can in­fil­trate the vic­tim's home and pri­va­cy through the use of com­mu­nica­tive tech­nolo­gies.

Since cy­ber­bul­lies are phys­i­cal­ly dis­tant from his/her vic­tim, they are shel­tered from their tar­get's re­sponse. They fail to re­alise the se­ri­ous­ness of the harm they are de­lib­er­ate­ly in­sti­gat­ing. The neg­a­tive psy­cho­log­i­cal ef­fects can be long-term re­sult­ing in poor­er func­tion­ing in the child's so­cial and oc­cu­pa­tion­al roles, de­crease in aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment due to lack of con­cen­tra­tion or be­ing in class with bul­lies, in­crease in tru­an­cy ac­tions to avoid the bul­lies, poor­er men­tal/emo­tion­al health, and self-harm­ing/sui­ci­dal thoughts and be­hav­iours.

Next week, we will deal with so­lu­tions to cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, and more specif­i­cal­ly, what should par­ents, schools and stu­dents do.

�2 The Caribbean In­sti­tute for Se­cu­ri­ty and Pub­lic Safe­ty of­fers a wide range of short train­ing pro­grammes for teach­ers, so­cial work­ers, guid­ance coun­selors, law en­force­ment, se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel and oth­er pub­lic safe­ty of­fi­cers in al­most 100 sub­ject ar­eas. These are done at its sched­uled class­es or in-house at or­ga­ni­za­tions. Con­tact us at 223-6999, in­fo@caribbeanse­cu­ri­tyin­sti­tute.com or www.caribbeanse­cu­ri­tyin­sti­tute.com.

Sta­cy Ramd­han MSc

Guest Writer, CISPS