"Cyberbullying"

        CYBERBULLYING

What it is

Cyberbullying differs from traditional, face‐to‐face bullying in that it can be relentless and public – and at the same time anonymous. It can occur anywhere and at any time, particularly because of the widespread use of mobile devices like cell phones among teens.

Victims of cyberbullying may or may not know the person who is bullying them. There could be countless other people seeing and/or participating in it, with or without the victim knowing.

• Young people are cyberbullied through instant messaging, email, websites for games and social networking sites.

• Built‐in cameras in cell phones are adding to the problem. In one case, students used a camera enabled cell phone to take a photo of an overweight classmate in the shower after gym, and the photo was distributed throughout the school email list within minutes.

• Sexting may expose teenagers to unkind behaviour or cyberbullying. Personal messages and photographs, even those sent to real friends or boyfriends/girlfriends, can end up being made public and even circulated repeatedly.

• Multi‐player online games and virtual worlds, including virtual worlds and gambling can be venues for harassment and cyberbullying when kids are playing or using the chat options to talk to other players.

• The simple act of tagging images (naming the people in the photo) on social networking sites can lead to cyberbullying as any comment can be left in the heat of the moment and sometimes completely anonymously. Negative comments can invite others to join in for fear of being on the ‘wrong side' of bullying – much like in the physical playground.

The statistics

A 2008 University of Toronto study found that half the students surveyed said they had been cyberbullied. in 4 youth participate in cyberbullying are teenagers who have also bullied others offline, but the remaining three‐quarters do not bully others in person. Cyberbullying can seem attractive to youth because it allows hem to say things online or in a text that they wouldn't normally say face‐to‐face, because they feel so removed from the person on the receiving end. Also, youth who cyberbully may not see the consequences of their actions on others and therefore may not feel any empathy or remorse.

Cyberbullying can begin as anaccident or simply out of boredom and the desire to create some excitement. So never assume that your child could not be involved in cyberbullying or be hurt by it.

Read each of the following statements and decide whether or not they are true or false. True / False

a. Someone who is being cyberbullied may not even know who is
responsible for the bullying.___

b. Cyberbully teens don’t bully other teens face to face. ____

c. Young people who cyberbully always know the effects of their
actions on others.____

d. Cyberbullying can happen through email.____

e. Cyberbullying can also happen to teens playing online games with
more than one player.____

f. Statistics from the University of Toronto study show that only a
very small number of students have been cyberbullied._____

g. The University of Toronto study showed that less than half of the
students surveyed do not bully others in person._____

h. Naming people in a photo on a social networking website can lead
to cyber bulling through negative comments that people can make.______

i. Sending sexually explicit text messages in order to embarrass
someone is an example of cyberbullying.______


Vocabulary Development
Use context clues from the reading to guess the meaning of the following words:
empathy, harassment, sexting, anonymous, tagging.


Definition Matching
Match the words to the correct definition and find the part of speech. The first one has been done for you as an example.

instant messaging, attractive, expose, excitement, virtual, widespread, survey, countless, consequences.

Definition    /     Part of   speech   /     Word           

1. common over a wide area or among many people/Adjective/Widespread
                                                                 
2.to cause (someone) to experience something or to be
influenced or affected by something/_________/__________.

3.a system for sending messages quickly over the Internet from one computer to another computer/_________/__________.

4. something that happens as a result of a particular action or set of conditions/_________/__________.

5. existing or occurring on computers or on the Internet/_____________/________________.

6. having a feature or quality that people like/___________/________________.

7. to ask (many people) a question or a series of questions in order to gather information about what most people do or think about something/_________/___________.

8.to think that something is true or probably true without knowing that it is true/___________/__________.

9.a feeling of eager enthusiasm and interest the state of  being excited/___________/____________.

10.too many to be counted : very many/___________/_________________.

Reading – Writing Link

How would you feel if you found out that someone you do not know tagged you in an embarrassing photo on a social networking website such as Facebook? Imagine that you found out about this photo at work when a co‐worker made a comment about it. What would you do?


Write a paragraph or two in response to the questions above. Remember to use correct word forms in your paragraph.