I have viewed some interesting emails relating to this article.
I feel I have to throw my two cents into this matter.
To me cyber bullying is a problem not matter how often it occurs in comparison to bullying that occurs offline.
If we look at NSW, the vast majority of school students in Year 9-12 now have a laptop due to the Federal Government's laptop rollout program.
Virtually every school student that I have come into contact with as a teacher owns a mobile phone or smartphone.
Simply technology is around us.
We are proliferated with it.
With this rise in technology, this provides the perfect setting for cyberbullying to occur.
The internet is a public place like the town square. Views can be said or heard by the entire world.
Cyberbullying is a form of bullying, like physical or verbal bullying.
Unlike the physical world, it can be done anonymously and the offender can get away with it without penalty unless their identity is published. in the physical world, the perpetrator is often known to the victim and is more likely to get caught.
In the classroom as teachers, we have a challenging job controlling a group of up to thirty students in a room. I find that I have to move around the room quite frequently if students are using computers to ensure that they are on task that they are not using communication tools (facebook, phones etc). Even then Its extremely easy for a student to put their phone in their lap or under the desk and text or message away. I have caught students doing this. Its akin to passing notes in the old days from student to student, except it is now done electronically.
But for the article to say that cyberbullying is not as prevalent as it seems because 16 % have reported being bullied electronically as opposed to 39 % who might be bullied offline bemuses me.
16 % of students being cyberbullied is still a very high number.
There is no way that cyberbullying is overrated at all.
The article does not mention what percentage of students have been bullied either physically or verbally.
There is also silent bullying (excluded from peer groups, not invited to social outings, being delibrately ignored by peers etc).
And I will also add that a small percentage of students are bullied by their teachers. I was actually subject to bullying by a teacher when I was in Year 10. As one of my peers said it was done because in that teachers view that I "needed to be a man".
If you were to break the offline bullying into the categories that I have mentioned, I think you will be amazed at how common cyberbullying is compared to other forms of bullying.
