I suppose it was inevitable really. The cyber-revolution has brought with it many wonderful new concepts and ideas, but naturally there are just as many bad ones that come along too.
Teenagers in particular have picked up on the latest advances far quicker than most others, as can be witnessed by the proliferation of youngsters participating in online chat rooms and the vast number that have their own personal Web sites or Web logs.
For that matter, when was the last time you saw a teenager without the latest and hippest cellphone?
These days, kids simply send rude SMSs or e-mails to their victims, or use the same means to spread stories about them to other pupils at the school.
Rodney Weidemann, journalist, ITWeb
Teenagers are the ones who developed the shortened SMS-language that is one of the factors that can be directly attributed to falling literacy standards (at least as far as this journalist is concerned).
However you may view these advances - and I'm pretty sure there are two vastly different schools of thought regarding their pros and cons - there is a dark side to these developments that cannot be seen to have a good side.
Cyber-bullying appears to be the latest nasty trend to hit schools, particularly the 12- to 14-year-old age group.
Sticks and stones...
A new phenomenon on the playground, cyber-bullying is the latest advance on the old routine of scribbling a nasty note about someone, or spreading rumours behind someone else's back.
These days, kids simply send rude SMSs or e-mails to their victims, or use the same means to spread stories about them to other pupils at the school.
In the same vein, the modern alternative to not being picked for one of the teams is to be the only one left out of a group online chat session.
The availability of picture phones has even resulted in compromising photos of students in school locker rooms or rest rooms being mass e-mailed to their peers.
Today's kids are a generation that is in constant communication with a wide network of their peers, no matter where they are, which means that there is, in effect, no safe place to get away from the cyber-bullies.
Apparently girls are generally bullied most about their looks, appearance and fashion choices, whereas boys are mostly bullied about sex and their sexual orientation.
It comes as no surprise to me that it is the 12- to 14-year-old age group that has found an even more insidious way to torture those whom the "in crowd" despise, or who are somehow different from the rest.
That is the age where kids are still unaware of just how hurtful such attacks can be, and yet are grown up enough to know just what spiteful remarks will hurt the most.
Schools are apparently fighting back with shields on school computers, which filter out offensive e-mails. There are also programmes to teach children the value of self-esteem and a lot of schools are also encouraging students to talk about bullying.
Hopefully these measures will help to curb this trend, although it is my opinion (speaking from experience, I might add) that while the delivery method may change, bullying is an issue that will always exist among children.
It is something that you either fight back against, learn to deal with, or you let it break you down, it is as simple as that.
Bully for you
The one thing that does interest me, however, is the seismic shift in exactly who is bullying whom.
Speaking as someone who was a geek himself at school, I remember that in the old days, it was always the sports-mad "jocks" that bullied the computer-literate "nerds".
Now that bullying has gone cyber, are we seeing a sort of "Revenge of the Nerds"? Are the geeks, the freaks and the swots now finally the ones who are getting their day in the sun, and their chance to exact vengeance on the numbskull jocks?
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