Canadian study: Cyberbullying seen as 'cool'

A recent survey found that 40% of Canadian 9-to-17-year-olds say they've been cyberbullied (43% female, 38% male), nearly 60% said there were no consequences, and "some 60% of the respondents agree people bully because it’s 'cool'," reports the Vancouver Sun, citing the survey from Microsoft Canada and market research firm Youthography. The London (Ont.) Free Press reports that Canadian "parents are more involved than ever with their children's online activities," with 84% of respondents saying they've talked with their parents about Internet dangers. Here's the study's press release. In other findings:

9-to-12-year-old Canadians are online just under two hours a day, on average, compared to three hours a day for teens 13-to-17-year-olds

Girls primarily go online to socialize, with "68% saying that is what they value the Internet for" and the same percentage of boys saying they value the ability to play games.

"Teens are more likely than tweens to use the Internet to escape problems, deal with stress and avoid family problems.

30% have lied about their age on a social networking site, and 15% have pretended to be someone they are not.

15% have had their passwords stolen.

76% are very careful about the personal information they divulge online.

Sexting in Canada too

"Canadian teenagers are increasingly finding themselves in trouble after images of themselves get posted on the Internet," reports the CBC, citing reports from Cybertip.ca, Canada's equivalent to the US's CyberTipline.com. "Respect Yourself" is the message of Cybertip.ca's new campaign to raise awareness of this problem. "In more than six years, 5% of 30,000 tips have been received from teenagers ... and many of those cases involved a young person who has either posted a picture of himself or herself on the Internet or forwarded a nude photo to a boyfriend and then regretted that after the photo has been shared with others," the online-child-exploitation hotline says. The toughest part of this is how hard it is to delete those photos. Even if responsible sites with customer-service departments delete them, there's no guarantee they weren't copied and posted elsewhere beforehand. [Another very kid-friendly education site for avid texters and photo-sharers is ThatsNotCool.com (see my coverage, "Stalking texters, sexting monsters."]

Key week for bullying awareness

Bullying needs to be detected and addressed early! "By age 24, 60% of identified bullies have a criminal conviction. Young children who were labeled by their peers as bullies required more support from adults, from government agencies, had more court convictions, more alcoholism, more anti-social personality disorders and used more mental health services," according to research by psychology professor Debra Pepler at York University (here's a sample of her work . That's just one of a group of statistics - some disturbing, some calls to action - that Bill Belsey pulled together and distributed to mark this week, Canada's sixth-annual Bullying Awareness Week. A parent and teacher too, Bill is founder of the award-winning Bullying.org and Cyberbullying.ca. Here are some other eye-opening numbers from Dr. Pepler and other Canadian researchers (for more info, see BullyingAwarenessWeek.org):

Bullying occurs in school playgrounds every 7 minutes and once every 25 minutes in class.

85% of bullying episodes occur in the context of a peer group.

Bullying usually stops in less than 10 seconds when peers intervene on behalf of the victim.

25% of kids children say teachers intervene in bullying situations, while 70% of
teachers believe they always intervene.

Bullying is reduced in schools where principals are committed to reducing bullying.

See also the McGill News on an experience that brought cyberbullying home - literally - for cyberbullying expert and McGill University professor Shaheen Shariff; Tips to help stop cyberbullying; "Cyberbullying better defined"; "Online harassment: Not telling parents"; and "Teaching students to help stop cyberbullying."