“Cyber bullying” is a new term that seems to be a household phrase that is infiltrating many homes with teenagers and young children. While it is important to discuss preventative ways to deter these actions, it’s also important to understand why there has been such an extensive rise of cyber bullying.

Traditional bullying occurs in the classroom or on school grounds, but technologically savvy kids are taking their unsettling words to the Internet through email, MySpace, Facebook, other websites and text and instant messages. Cyber bullies are posting disturbing messages, videos and images of their contacts onto the web where millions of other people can see. Cyber bullies can also remain anonymous on websites and through email messages so the increase of bullies on the web is also rising.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noticed a rise in cyber bullying. In 2000, only nine percent of kids ages 10 to 17 experienced this type of bullying. The percentage has now reached 50 percent for 2008. Another study shows that 64 percent of the teens that said they were the victim of cyber bullying were never bullied at school. There are a few reasons why this rate has increased so much. This age bracket is becoming more technologically savvy as a result of entertainment and their other interests going online. Schools are also teaching students how to use the Internet to acquire help with projects and homework. Social media groups also let these kids create a profile about themselves and easy ways to communicate with others.

i-SAFE Inc., a worldwide leader in Internet safety education, conducted a study to prove the rise of cyber bullying. Their conclusions showed that: 53 percent of the 1500 student surveyed have admitted to saying something mean or hurtful to a person through the Internet; 42 percent of those surveyed have experienced bullying online; and 58 percent of those surveyed have had someone say something hurtful to them online. Even more alarming, 58 percent never told their parents about their experienced with being bullied online.

While it may seem like a simple solution to prevent cyber bullying is to take away all computer privileges, many of today’s kids use these websites and Internet tools as another way of socializing. MySpace cyber bullying is a popular mode because bullies can post hateful information on another person’s profile page or on their own page, or a bully can create a separate profile just about bullying this particular person. Facebook cyber bullying is similar to MySpace cyber bullying because they can create fake identities or create a page with the sole purpose of bullying another person. Twitter is another social media network that is adding to the rise of cyber bullying. A user can “follow” another person to post status updates or send mean messages. Users can also post links to websites about cyber bulling as “helpful” how-to guides.

In extreme cases, kids are learning how to create their own websites, free of charge, to target a while site about bullying individuals. The person gains acceptance with their group of friends because they are humiliating the other person for everyone to see. Then, the bully will use MySpace, Facebook or Twitter to spread the word about additions to their hateful website.

Access to the Internet is also increasing. Local small businesses are offering free wireless Internet access for their customers as a marketing tool to increase their sales. Cell phones offer quick and simple access to the Internet. The Internet is offered in school libraries and classrooms for school work and educational tools. If your child is not allowed on the web while they are at home, of course they are going to find alternative ways to stay connected.

Some social media websites require the child’s email address and password to gain access into their account. This limits the ability for a parent to monitor their navigation through certain sites and some parents just aren’t involved enough to be concerned with what is going on over the internet. Without an open level of communication between child and parent, there may be another life your child is leading without you even knowing.

The rise of cyber bullying is definitely increasing with the current times so it is important to discuss this with your children to prevent any serious injury or conflicts.

Around the country, more and more of our young people are falling victim to cyber bullying – the use of electronic devices such as an Internet-connected computers to bully, harass, intimidate or humiliate another individual. But where is all of this online cyber bullying taking place? The following list provides insight into the sites most commonly being used for cyber bullying as well as why and how this problem is occurring.

MySpace Cyber Bullying

MySpace is the number one social networking site for high school age students and younger. How popular is MySpace? Rupert Murdoch bought the company $580 millions dollars just a few short years ago and now the company’s value is several times that already huge figure.

Most kids use MySpace to set up profiles and share information about themselves, their favorite music, Hollywood stars and other interests with kids in their school or neighborhood. For most, MySpace represents a fun form of self-expression that utilizes the latest online technology.

But a small percentage of kids use MySpace for cyber bullying. This can be accomplished in several different ways, including:

• Posting hateful information on another person’s MySpace page.
• Posting hateful information about another person on your own MySpace page
• Creating a new MySpace profile for the sole purpose of bullying another individual.

However it is executed, cyber bullying on MySpace remains a significant problem. While many chalk it up to “kids being kids”, more and more are starting to realize that a nasty post on someone’s MySpace page is as bad or worse that a taunt yelled across the schoolyard.

Facebook Cyber Bullying

Facebook is similar to MySpace except that it is geared towards a slightly older audience (the music and customization functionality is a lot less robust than found on MySpace) but is still being used by cyber bullies to harass their classmates and ex-friends. The rules of engagement are similar to those found in MySpace: people will either use their own profile to harass others, or create fake identities and build profiles to harass other people or dupe them into thinking another person is interested in them (romantically or as a friend).

Twitter Cyber Bullying

One of the fastest growing social media enterprises, Twitter allows people to “follow” one another by posting regular updates about their activities. Twitter is seeing a growing number of cyber bullying incidents as more and more kids figure out how to post hateful, harassing information about their friends and deliver it “via Tweet” to as many followers of the site as they can.

Website Cyber Bullying

In the most extreme cases of cyber bullying, many kids are going to the trouble of building entire websites from scratch in order to use them to humiliate another individual. A common method for doing this is to buy a URL from godaddy.com that humiliates the target (such as www.lisaisugly.com) then fill it with unkind postings and photos (Photoshopping a person into uncompromising positions is a highly used form of cyber bullying) then spreading word about the site to others via email, social networking, etc.