Summer's Not Guaranteed Respite for Cyberbullying

Teens have more free time during the summer:  free time to travel, free time to read and more free time to cyberbully.

Summer used to give teens shelter from schoolyard bullies, but some cyberbullies are just as active during July and August as they are the rest of the year. According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, as many as 14 percent of students are cyberbullies.

Maeve Koeltl, 17, from Westchester, N.Y., is a teen angel, a trained expert on cybersafety at Wired Safety, an online safety organization. According to Maeve, cyberbullying is defined as a malicious action using words or pictures over the Internet or any other type of interactive device.

“All you need is a computer, cell phone, or any other interactive media,” Maeve said.

Her research shows that cyberbullying takes place all year round. “What the Internet is allowing teens to do is 24/7 bullying,” Maeve said. “It’s not like they can go home and escape bullying. It follows them everywhere.”

Khalila Blake, 16, is one victim of cyberbullying. Khalila was looking at her friend’s comment on MySpace during the July Fourth Weekend in 2008 when she saw a comment made by an account that used her name. She commented on the fake MySpace profile and had an argument with the imposter. Though she hasn’t proven the cyberbully’s identity, “I believe it was somebody who I was close to,” Khalila said. “The person knew a lot of personal things about me.”

She immediately reported it to MySpace, but no one from MySpace did anything. Khalila followed her mom’s advice and stopped talking to the person who she thought was the cyberbully. She did not worry over the summer because she was not going to the same school as the cyberbully. The cyberbullying, however, did leave an emotional impact.

“It kinda made me nervous,” Khalila said, “because the person that you are really close to can hurt you the most.”

Jane, a high school student, was a recent victim of cyberbullying. Jane (who does not want her real named used) made an account on a website during the school year and received several callous comments from anonymous users. She had a feeling who wrote those comments and cancelled her account months ago. After the incident, Jane grew more cautious over the Internet.

“I have no one I can trust in at this point,” Jane said.

But for Jane, summer provides a respite.

“I feel much more protected over the summer on any website or anything online,” said Jane, relieved.

Although summer doesn’t affect some cyberbullying victims, some cyberbullies increase their activities in the summer. Tony Liu, 16, a self-proclaimed cyberbully, goes on online games like Counter Strike to curse and bother the other players when he is bored, angry, or as he puts it, “any given time and any given day.”

“I have free time and I don’t worry about school work or anything,” Tony said.

But some cyberbullies have better things to do during the summer than to be mean to people online.

“I cyberbully more in the school year because I was out more in the summer,” Tiffany Luk, a student at Baruch College, said.

Cyberbullying is getting more attention from state legislatures. Many states including New York, Missouri and Maryland have passed laws against digital harassment. California became the first state to pass a law allowing schools to discipline students online.

The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act was proposed to Congress last April and named after Megan Meier, who committed suicide after being cyberbullied by her friend’s mother, Lory Drew. The bill states that “whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.” This federal bill has not yet been ratified

Just as how state legislatures are coming up with laws to stop cyberbullying, social networking sites such as Formspring are working to end cyberbullying too. Formspring, a website where users answer questions to ask other users questions, launched a privacy option in July, eight months after the site launched.

“Users can select if they want to make their account ‘Protected,’ which means (that) it is not viewable/searchable on the Web,” Director of Communication Sarahjane Sacchetti said, “and that they have to grant access to users they want to share content with.”

By making this option available, Formspring allows users to block out unfamiliar logged in users and anonymous users who can potentially leave offensive comments.

Even though efforts are going into cyberbullying prevention, the best prevention is to take precaution.

“I think I learned a lesson,” Jane said “Be very careful what you say online. It really affects you in the long run.”