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Individuals who use the internet to bully others are known as “cyberbulllies.” Bullying on the internet can be done via email, instant messaging and chatrooms. Websites like MySpace and Facebook are not only used to share information and pictures taken of one’s individual life, but to harass, tease and bully others. Author Vanessa Van Petten’s featured article discusses some reasons, methods and information that parents, youth leaders and educators need to be aware of to help our children avoid and keep from bullying others.

The Internet has changed the playground-bully into the in-my-bedroom-bully. It’s true, the line between school life and home life is gone. Kids can no longer leave the social pressures, cliques, bullies, snoodiness and the other highlights of adolescence at school.

Now the social scene follows students home, into their bedrooms, and can be turned on at any moment. No, in fact it is never turned off, because you never know who is going to post something mean on your wall next. Here, I want to give a brief overview of how bullying has changed for the net-generation so parents are more equipped to handle it and help their kids deal with it. Today, bullying/cyberbullying is:

1) Creative

-steal lunch money
-call someone names/say mean things to their face
-call someone names/say mean things behind their back
-punch them in the face/kick them/pinch them/ physically assault them
-punch them in the face/kick them/pinch them/ physically assault their

friend or usually younger, relative.
-write a nasty note and pass it around class, leave it on their locker
-stick your tongue out at them
Options for a bully today: (just from the news stories I found on bullying alone, I could think of many more that have not been reported on)

-write a nasty note or rumor on their Facebook wall for everyone to see
-put up embarrassing pictures of the person on your school’s social network
-digitally impose the person’s head onto a naked body and pass it around like it is real
-submit their name/picture to a site like “Hot or Not” for strangers to rate how ugly the person is
-create a website dedicated to how much you hate that person
-bate them into writing a mean/weird IM chat and post it all over MySpace or the school.
-Create a fake user, pretend to be hot, flirt with the person and then break up with them/tell them you hate them/ tell them they are too ugly for you.
-Send mean text messages
-harass their avatars or video game players on gaming websites
It is incredibly sad, but the Internet has brought thousands of ways to bully someone without ever being caught. Parents need to know that their child could be bullied in a number of ways online, through phones and even through video games.

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