Cyberbullying study

A new study in the UK has just given Britons a cyberbullying reality check. The BBC reports that a MSN/YouGov survey found that more than 10% of UK teens have been bullied online; 13% say cyberbullying is worse than physical bullying; 24% know a victim; 44% know someone who has been threatened via email or instant-messaging; "about one-third know of instances where bullies hacked into mail or IM accounts and sent embarrassing material from them"; and 62% know of rumors or malicious gossip being spread online; 74% did not go to their parents or anyone for advice last time they were cyberbullied (reportedly out of fear their Net access would be shut down). Meanwhile, half of parents are unaware of cyberbullying. It might be good for parents to bring this subject up over a meal sometime – maybe to say the Net won't get shut down if cyberbullying comes up, and we are there for you if it does, so come and tell us (there are links to parent guides to cyberbullying at MSN UK and Cyberbully.org in the US). Meanwhile, the survey didn't appear to cover another obvious online venue for cyberbullying, including Bebo.com in the UK: social-networking sites where young users post comments in each other's blogs and profiles (see the Marin Independent Journal, which singles out MySpace because it has the lionshare of traffic).