Cyber-Bullying Cases Rampant Among Some Countries- Poll
A recent poll by a global research firm and a known news agency revealed that more than a tenth of different interviewed parents worldwide say their child is a subject of cyberbullying cases. The poll also show that less than a fourth of the respondents know a youngster who is a victim of cyberbullying mostly on social networking sites.
Reuters and research firm Ipsos conducted an online poll with more than 18,000 adult subjects in 24 different countries where 6,500 of whom are parents. Their poll concluded that the popular vehicles for cyberbullying are social networking sites such as Facebook, which was sited as the medium used by cyberbullies in 60 percent of the cases. Mobile devices came in second and online chatrooms were the third leading mediums.
Cyber-Bullying
Cyberbullying much like the actual bullying involves verbal attacks and sometimes threats or the attempt to destroy one’s credibility by false implications and is common on students of primary and middle schools. Three-fourth of the interviewed individuals on the poll agreed on the notion that cyberbullying warrants special attention and approach on tackling the issue via the efforts of parents and schools. Majority of them also thought that this type of online bullying is a type of harassment that is of different medium but of the same effect to victims from what usually happens on the actual world.
“The data clearly shows an appetite among global citizens for a targeted response to cyberbullying,” said one of the Ipsos officials Keren Gottfried. The poll also showed that people around the world has relatively high awareness about cyberbullying with two-thirds of them have had some sort of information or direct knowledge on the phenomenon and how culture, appearance and geographic differences plays a factor on such cases.
Indonesia came out as one of the countries with the highest awareness of the phenomenon where a child, a young teenager, or a group of youngsters are intentionally intimidated, threatened or embarassed by another child or group by the use of negative information on social media sites or mobile devices. Australia emerged with 87 percent awareness while Sweeden and Poland has almost the same percentage. The United States, which have had reports of teen-age suicides linked to cyberbullying cases have 82 percent of its population aware on the issue.
In contrast, Russia and Saudi Arabia has one of the lowest respondents with little information about cyberbullying with 35 percent and 29 percent saying that they have heard of the issue. The research firm Ipsos related the results of their findings to where cyberbullying really placed in today’s society and on different countries.
Relatively, Indonesia came out with the highest number of incidence of cyberbullyig with 53 percent of its people have known or knows a child in the community that is targeted by bullies online. India has 32 percent of parents saying their child had been a victim of cyberbullying. Brazil have had the same issue with 20 percent, Canada has 18 percent and United States has 15 percent of the parent responders saying that their child also have experienced the phenomenon.
“The key to this study is that it measures parental awareness of cyberbullying, not actual rates of the behavior,” she said. “While we can’t speculate on what actually happens, it is quite possible that the proportion of children actually being cyberbullied is in fact understated, since we are speaking with the parents, not the kids,” says Gottfried.
On a positive note France and Spain has the lowest reports of cyberbullying cases on either their community or their own children. The research firm said that future studies must be aimed toward greater awareness on the issue of cyberbullying and that it should involve the roles of parental and school awareness.