news
Being Bullied by Instant Messaging
Posted on August 30, 2004
Can you relate to Laugh at the Fat Kid and Storm? Have you even been bullied or witnessed it happening? Bullying is taking on a new form as cyberspace is being used to taunt, frighten and torment adolescents. An article recently published in the New York Times explores this new bullying phenomenon.
Internet Gives Teenage Bullies Weapons to Wound From Afar
August 26, 2004
By AMY HARMON
The fight started at school, when some eighth-grade girls
stole a pencil case filled with makeup that belonged to a
new classmate, Amanda Marcuson, and she reported them.
But it did not end there. As soon as Amanda got home, the
instant messages started popping up on her computer screen.
She was a tattletale and a liar, they said. Shaken, she
typed back, "You stole my stuff!" She was a "stuck-up
bitch," came the instant response in the box on the screen,
followed by a series of increasingly ugly epithets.
That evening, Amanda's mother tore her away from the
computer to go to a basketball game with her family. But
the barrage of electronic insults did not stop. Like a lot
of other teenagers, Amanda has her Internet messages
automatically forwarded to her cellphone, and by the end of
the game she had received 50 - the limit of its capacity.
"It seems like people can say a lot worse things to someone
online than when they're actually talking to them," said
Amanda, 14, of Birmingham, Mich., who transferred to the
school last year. The girls never said another word to her
in person, she said.