Have you ever pondered what your children are doing online? If you think they’re harmlessly chatting about nail polish, fashion and mainstream music or browsing the net for intellectually stimulating articles, you’re wrong, at least in part. Cyber bullying has become a real threat to school-aged children and young adults of today. With no laws in the state of Indiana to protect them from the effects of this ever rising trend, cyber bullying can be emotionally devastating. Who would have thought that this revolutionary convenience would turn into a social playground, or shall we say, social battleground?
Growing up for my generation in the mid 80's consisted of creatively entertaining myself with an array of activities with neighborhood friends. We didn’t surf the net, we roller skated on freshly paved streets. We didn’t text, we wrote 7 paged letters. We didn’t pull our cell phones out every minute of the day to see who called, we were constrained to the middle of the kitchen with mom looking over our shoulders. We certainly did not “IM” and had no idea the concept even existed! School was a safe place to be with very little conflict, there certainly wasn't a metal detector to go through or threats among students.
There was a time when kids didn’t have to be home until the street lights came on, but things sure have changed. Where in 1990 most homes did not have a personal computer at their disposal, it is now a social norm which allows our children access to an array of information at their fingertips. As a form of reference or used as a tool to do research for school projects, this access is certainly more convenient compared to the hours spent at the library sifting through books to earn good grades. However, the internet is a gateway to more than just educational material by far! In addition, the mass majority of children over the age 13 also have cell phones with internet access, keeping them connected around the clock.
With texting abilities, Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, just to name a few, our kids have the ability to share (sometimes sexually explicit) pictures and every day thoughts with the entire world. Popular social networking websites and use of mobile phones has allowed them to intertwine with each other’s lives in a much more intimate way as in the past decades, and surprisingly with very little supervision. Read More
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