A survey has been conducted of 577 students aged between 12 and 18 in Galway. The study found that 85% say cyber bullying is a major issue for young people and 22% have been subject to online bullying, while 50% know someone who has been cyber-bullied.
A majority, 80%, did not think that enough was being done to tackle the issue of cyberbullying.
The research was conducted for Galway West Labour TD, Derek Nolan and Labour MEP candidate for Midlands North-West, Senator Lorraine Higgins.
Bully4u said in its most recent survey of 1,020 children aged between 13 and 15; 80% of 13-year-olds and 90% of 15-year-olds were using the smartphone app.
The rapid uptake of users has pushed the way the app works into the spotlight, particularly in light of some legal cases in other countries where young people have been investigated for alleged distribution of child pornography.
Users can take photos or videos and send them to a controlled list of recipients, while setting a time limit for how long the recipients can view their “Snaps”, from one second to 10 seconds.
Then the image is hidden and deleted from the server. However, recipients can preserve it by taking a screen grab of it on their device.
The director of Bully4u, Jim Harding, said: “We are aware that Snapchat is being used for both cyber-bullying and sexting.
“Sexting is a highly dangerous practice, and illegal where children are concerned as it constitutes the manufacture and distribution of child pornography.
“Snapchat gives the illusion that the image will dissolve after a certain time limit, whereas in reality recipients can take a ‘screen shot’ or use other apps to save the image. Sexting and cyber bullying using ‘photo messaging’ apps is not receiving the focus or attention that it needs.”
He cited one case from last November in Quebec, in which 10 boys aged 13 to 15 were arrested on child pornography charges, after they allegedly captured and shared explicit photos of teenage girls sent through Snapchat as screen shots.
He said there had been another case in Canada in which a 17-year-old girl was found guilty in January this year of distributing child pornography for “sexting” pictures of her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend.
One student told Bully4u they were sent an image of a knife in a bullying case.
“They should be more aware but they need more education about it because they operate in their own world, a digital playground as such,” Mr Harding said.
“They don’t realise they are leaving a digital footprint. It’s a two-pronged approach — [informing] the parents and, more importantly, it is communicating with the children and letting them know.”
The spread of cyberbullying coincides with the digital revolution, most recently the popularity of mobile devices such as smartphones, now owned by over 60pc of Irish teenagers.
Cyberbullying is a more insidious form of traditional bullying because it allows the perpetrator to remain anonymous, while the use of technology makes it difficult for the target to escape it.
The recent survey carried out for the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD) provides disturbing evidence of how the problem is growing, despite ongoing efforts to combat it.
Among the worrying findings is the almost doubling in the proportion of pupils who engaged in cyberbullying, when compared with similar research a year ago. It found that 9pc, or almost one in 10, admitted to cyberbullying – up from 5pc in 2013.
Meanwhile, 16pc said they have been the target of online or text bullying – a rise of one-third on the previous year.
The survey highlights how parents may not be fully aware of the extent to which the children are suffering, with only 12pc reporting that a child of theirs has been a victim of cyberbullying.
It also found that 26pc of parents monitor their children’s activities online on a daily basis, while 15pc never monitor.
MORALE
The older the parent, the less likely they are to keep a check, with 64pc of under 35-year-olds monitoring their children’s online activity weekly, reducing to 40pc among the over-45s.
NAPD director Clive Byrne described the growing prevalence of cyberbullying as “quite disturbing”, adding that the annual survey – conducted in January and February among 1,000 parents and young people by Amarach Research – provided a valuable insight into the ever-changing attitudes and prevalence of cyberbullying among second-level pupils.
The findings are consistent with research by Dublin City University, which found that 14pc of students reported that they had been cyberbullied, while 8pc admitted cyberbullying. Another survey by NUI Maynooth reported that 17pc of students were victims of cyberbullying, while 9pc admitted carrying it out.
Mr Byrne said cyberbullying posed a clear and present threat to the collective morale of schools. He added the survey clearly indicated that the less parents monitored their children’s online activity, the less they knew.
Arising from the findings, the NAPD will shortly make a formal submission to the Government’s Internet Content Advisory Group, which will include a recommendation for a National Cyberbullying Policy, encompassing government departments and public sector agencies.
NAPD is also seeking increased training for parents, particularly older parents, and a module on cyberbullying as part of the Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) curriculum, to be taught at junior and senior cycles.
And the principals also want the Department of Education to develop a standardised template to allow schools to self-evaluate the effectiveness of existing cyberbullying initiatives within their school.
Teachers should search for and delete inappropriate images on their students’ mobile phones to prevent them being distributed and used for cyberbullying, a Home Office minister has suggested.
Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday, Norman Baker said teachers should utilise extended powers granted to them to go through students phones and delete “sexting” images.
The Liberal Democrat crime minister was responding to calls from fellow MPs to consider banning teenagers from using smartphones altogether if they were being used to bully their peers by posting intimate images on the internet.
“We have given teachers stronger powers to tackle cyberbullying by searching for and, if necessary, deleting inappropriate images or files on electronic devices, including mobile phones,” Mr Baker said. “It is critical to educate young people about the risks of sending intimate photographs.”
The greater search powers given to teachers were introduced under the coalition’s Education Act in 2011, but were described by experts as going “beyond those of the police”.
As TES reported at the time, human rights group Liberty described the controls as “excessive”, adding that they were akin to those used in “terrorist investigations”.
Children’s charities and anti-bullying groups have spoken repeatedly of the dangers young people face if they share intimate pictures via text message, with many girls being coerced into sending images of themselves.
Speaking in the same debate, Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston urged the government to go further in its crackdown on cyberbullying involving sexting, and demanded an outright ban on teens using smartphones.
“The minister will be aware that many young people have been pressured into sending intimate photographs of themselves only to find that those images are sometimes posted, distributed or shared without their consent, which is an important form of bullying and harassment,” Ms Wollaston said.
“What measures have been taken, and does the minister support measures to prevent smartphone use by those who are not mature enough to understand that it can result in an important form of bullying?”
But when discussing the matter on TES Connect’s forums, teachers appeared reluctant to to use the powers available to them, suggesting that they were intrusive.
Sexting — sending sexually explicit messages or pictures — has been proven “not uncommon” for at-risk early adolescents in a study published Jan. 6 by a team lead by Christopher Houck, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior.
The study found 22 percent of seventh-grade participants who were identified as “at-risk” by their Rhode Island public schools reported to have sexted in the past six months — 17 percent with messages and 5 percent with photos.
The study, titled “Sexting and Sexual Behavior in At-Risk Adolescents,” was conducted by researchers from the Bradley/Hasbro Children’s Research Center, Rhode Island Hospital and Alpert Medical School and was funded by the National Institute of Health.
A rise in technology
One of very few studies done on early adolescents in this field, it focused on students “identified by their schools as potentially having symptoms of emotional or behavioral difficulties,” Houck said.
Four hundred and eighteen students completed long surveys, in which four of the questions were yes or no questions pertaining to sexting. The researchers obtained the information privately to encourage honest answers, Houck said.
“The intersection of technology and sex and sexuality was of interest to us because there’s very little literature out there,” Houck said. Most sexting studies have been with college and high school students, he added.
This study, in particular, looks at the connection between emotional competence, sexual behavior and sexting, Houck said. “We do a lot in adolescent sexual risk behavior in general, but we’ve never looked specifically at sexting and how it relates to sexual risk before.”
Sexting is a “marker” of sexual behavior in seventh-grade students, Houck said. Other markers include emotional and behavioral problems, therefore leading to the focus on at-risk students.
Since the study was conducted on youth who were identified as being at-risk, “this may increase the number of youth who are reporting sexting, since it appears that teens who sext may be involved in multiple risk-taking behaviors, including, of course, engaging in sex and risky sex,” wrote Eric Rice, assistant professor at the University of Southern California and researcher in the field, in an email to The Herald.
The team’s hypothesis, based off of previous works, held true — “those who are engaged in sexting are more likely to engage in sexual behaviors,” Houck said.
This discovery “reinforces our finding that teen sexting is relatively common, even among younger adolescents,” wrote Jeff Temple, an associate professor and psychologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch who did postdoc research at Brown, in an email to The Herald.
While the hypothesis held true, Houck said the team was surprised to find that those sending picture messages were even more likely to be engaged in sexual activity than those sending text messages.
Ultimately, the findings of the study show that “the line between online and offline behaviors is becoming increasingly blurred,” Temple wrote.
Monitoring information
Houck said he believes the information found can be widely used to combat risky sexual behaviors.
Houck urged parents to confront their children if they find sexually explicit messages or photographs on their computers or phones. “Don’t just dismiss it as kids being kids, because we think of it as a marker of probably something more,” he said.
Parents should “perhaps use sexting as a means to introduce the topic of sex and safe sex,” Temple wrote.
It is important for parents to monitor information and communicate with their children, Houck said, adding that involvement is crucial to prevention.
Those found to sext were also found to have greater emotional problems, Houck said.
Sexting can be used as a tool to “get around those awkward social moments,” he said. “This study would say that those who sexted feel less competent in terms of their emotions.”
Some argue mobile phone technology is no more sexually risky than passing notes like kids have been doing for years, Houck said, but there are two large differences.
First, everything is faster with technology, he said. “The whole process that used to take a couple days now can happen in a few minutes.”
Second, the digital nature of the messages makes them easier to share with others by forwarding, making the risks associated with sexting much more serious, he said.
A ‘bigger target’
This study is part of a much greater initiative, Houck said. The surveys the students took included many other questions relating to other aspects of sexual behavior, and the data for this specific study came from one of many surveys taken in the greater project.
As a whole, the study looks to find an effective method to “prevent sexual risk behaviors,” Houck said. The participants take the baseline survey, which the sexting results came from, then complete one of two programs. They continue to take the survey every six months to see which program proves more effective, he added.
Originally proposed in 2008 and starting in 2009, this five-year project is only now beginning to wrap up, with the participants now in high school, Houck said.
Ultimately there is a “bigger target” to the project, Houck said. “If we can keep early adolescents from having sex, then we have a better chance of reducing some of the negative outcomes that could happen from sexual behavior, like STDs, early pregnancy, that kind of thing,” he added.
As of now, it is unclear whether sexting leads to sexual behavior or whether sexual behavior leads to sexting, Houck said. “With the larger study, hopefully we’ll be able to look longitudinally and see a pattern as to which comes first,” he said.
The data from the complete two-and-a-half-year time period will be used to “see the trajectory of these two behaviors and how they go together,” Houck said.
Already this year, we’ve heard a lot about youth and sexting. In a study published by theAmerican Academy of Pediatrics, researchers found that nearly one-quarter of at-risk middle school students between the ages of 12 and 14 have sexted in the past six months.
With younger age groups having access to more social platforms, it’s imperative that parents use their cyber-shields to spread awareness of online safety and the issue of sexting. This not only means talking to your child about how to respond to a questionable text or email, but also how to react if someone is harassing them on Facebook or Instagram.
What is sexting?
According to Merriam-Webster, sexting is “The sending of sexually explicit messages or images by cell phone.”
However, that definition can easily be expanded today. Cell phones aren’t the only medium for sexting. On the contrary, all forms of social media can be used for this purpose. In the digital world — where our children and teens spend so much time — the playground for sexting is growing. From Facebook to Twitter, Instagram and even YouTube, a child is able to engage in sexting.
Sexting: online and off
When young people sext, they often lose control of the situation quickly. Messages can easily be intercepted or forwarded to unintended recipients, which is a nasty form of cyberbullying.
The consequences of sexting also extend offline. When something that was intended to be a private communication ends up in public, the shame and humiliation can drive our kids to the point of self-destruction. Another consequence of sexting: Experts have found children and teens that sext are more likely to engage in real-world sexual activity than students who don’t sext.
The issue is compounded when adults aren’t setting the right examples. The media often reports on sexting cases that involve public figures. “10 Cases of Sexting Gone Horribly Wrong” discusses politicians, teachers and even a talk show host who were caught committing sexting crimes. These adults should have been role models for our youth. Instead, they provide examples of what not to do.
Start the sext chat
For years, many parents have cringed at the thought of having the “birds and the bees” conversation. Now, we have to open the door for the “sext talk” with our kids at an even younger age. Jessica Logan, Hope Witsell, Audrie Pott and Amanda Todd are all names that have become linked with the aftermath of sexting and cyberbullying, which go hand-in-hand. As a study in Pediatrics reveals, we have to realize that we’re dealing with even younger emotional lives.
It’s a parent’s responsibility to empower their children with the knowledge to make good choices about how to use all forms of technology and social media. But how can parents approach “sext education”?
• Start talking: When your kids hear news of sext crime cases, initiate a conversation. Talk about how sexting leads to negative consequences even for adults.
• Just do it: You may not get a perfect time to break the ice, but don’t wait for an incident to happen. Be proactive and use the recent APA study to open the lines of communication.
• Make it real: Kids don’t always realize that what they do online is “real-life.” Ask them to consider how they would feel if their teacher or grandparent saw a provocative comment or picture. Remind them there’s no rewind online and no true delete button in the digital world. Comments and photos are not retrievable.
• Address peer pressure: Teach your kids to be self-confident and take pride in their individuality. ‘Am I pretty enough?’ is a burning question for many young girls today. It takes just a few keystrokes to help them feel good about themselves — or exponentially worse. Acknowledge that social pressure to participate in sexting can be strong. But remind kids that public humiliation stemming from it can be a million times worse.
• Give them control: If kids receive unwanted sexually-charged messages or pictures, they should know what to do next: Be the solution. They should tell you or another trusted adult, and never forward or share those messages with friends.
Takeaway tips:
• Learn about services like uKnowKids that offer free Facebook monitoring for your kids.
• Be an educated parent and keep up with the digital times.
• Communication is the key to prevention. Talk, talk, and talk even more about it.
• Being kind online goes a long way. Learn how digital responsibility impacts everyone and#TakeNoBullies.
VICTORIA, British Columbia, Jan. 11 (UPI) — A Canadian teenager has been found guilty of “sexting” pictures of her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend she found on his cell phone.
The girl, who was 16 at the time she sent the pictures in November 2012, was convicted Friday in juvenile court in Victoria, British Columbia, of distributing child pornography and making threats, a youth prosecutor, Chandra Fisher, said. She was allowed to remain free on bail while she awaits sentencing.
The prosecutor said the girl was angry when she learned her boyfriend, then 17, was still friendly with his former girlfriend. She made threats on Facebook and then broadcast the pictures she discovered.
Fisher said the teen, whose name has not been released because of her age, is the first juvenile convicted in Canada of child pornography in a sexting case.
Notts County Council have told Capital more young people could get involved in ‘sexting’ as more mobile devices, like phones and tablets, were activated over Christmas.
Matt Rooney’s part of a team at Nottinghamshire County Council which goes into schools to warn about online dangers like sexting:
‘Loads of kids said we know how to be safe on the internet, we just choose not to’ and that is really worrying.
‘I can pretty much guarentee if you said to a 15 or 16-year-old in Nottinghamshire ‘have you heard of sexting?’ they would say yes.’
Last year, calls to Childline about ‘sexting’ increased by nearly thirty per-cent.
The Dangers of Sexting
– Vulnerability to blackmail and harm: young people may think ‘sexting’ is harmless but it can leave them vulnerable to blackmail where someone may threaten to share the pictures with family and friends unless they send money or more images
– Bullying: if images are shared with their peers or in school, the child may be bullied.
– Unwanted attention: images posted online can attract the attention of sex offenders, who know how to search for, collect and modify images.
– Emotional distress: children can feel embarrassed and humiliated. If they are very distressed, this could lead to suicide or self-harm.
Online hate campaigns have rocketed, with stalking and death threats rife on social media sites such as Facebook.
Thousands are living in fear and police have seen huge rises in reports of the web crimes, many of which are part of break-ups and family feuds played out in public.
Some cases have resulted in violence, rape and child abuse, while others featured revenge porn – where people share explicit snaps of their exes, our research shows.
Freedom of Information requests were made to all 43 police forces in England and Wales for incidents of threats and harassment through social media.
Of the 26 to respond, 18 recorded increases in the past three years, with 13 seeing rises of more than 50% and five of 100% or more. One force even saw a rise of 225%.
However, Chief Constable Andy Trotter, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said legal guidance made it difficult to prosecute.
He said: “Every force has specialist investigators who look into crimes with a link to social media. As the threshold for prosecution in relation to crimes using social media has been set very high, this means that only the most serious offences will be prosecuted.”
The UK has 33 million Facebook users and 10 million people on Twitter. Police records show Facebook in particular is being used increasingly to launch hate campaigns.
Devon and Cornwall police saw a 225% rise in complaints – up from 138 in 2010/11 to 449 in 2012/13. Northern Ireland had a 186% rise and North Wales reports soared 124%. Staffordshire’s doubled and Warwickshire’s went up by 90%.
Humberside saw an 82% rise in crime on Facebook and Twitter – from 116 in 2010/11 to 211 in 2012/13. Offences included rape and meeting a child after sexual grooming.
Social media sites have also been used to breach restraining orders, track down police officers and pervert the course of justice by intimidating jurors. Victims were wrongly accused of being paedophiles and, in a number of cases, harassment led to violence and sex attacks. Threats included one man posting: “You’ve got 24 hours to get out or I will set you on fire – I’m going to kill you.”
And one officer’s report stated: “Ex-partner has been sending texts including threats to post explicit pictures of the aggrieved on Facebook. These have then been posted over a number of days.” It comes as the US and New Zealand prepare laws to prosecute those who use revenge porn to humiliate victims.
In the UK study, actual complaints could be even higher as police only included incidents where named social media sites were mentioned. The responses did not indicate how many resulted in a conviction.
The CPS said: “If cases involve a credible threat or messages that amount to a campaign of harassment, we will prosecute robustly. Where messages are offensive we have to strike a difficult balance between the right to free speech and whether something is so grossly offensive as to be criminal.”
Forces to buck the national trend and see a reduction in social media crime included Norfolk, Derbyshire, Cambridgeshire and Wiltshire.
Former bailiff Mark King was forced to uproot his family after Facebook users threatened to burn their home to the ground.
An argument with a neighbour over minor car damage escalated when she blamed Mark and wife Jennifer, 39, for having too many parked cars in the street.
Dad-of-two Mark, 45, said: “Jennifer and I weren’t on Facebook, so we knew nothing about it until a friend came round with his laptop and said, ‘You have to see this’.
“The neighbour had put our names and address on there, saying she hoped someone would burn our house down. People were posting saying they would arrange it.
“There was reams and reams of it – it just went viral. People were saying they would glass me in the face if they saw me in town.
“Every time we heard the letter-box go, we were thinking, ‘Is someone pouring petrol in?’”
Jennifer was afraid to be left alone in the house with the children and the couple sought advice from a lawyer friend. But they were told the police were unlikely to act because the threats had not been made directly to them.
Within six months, the family had sold their home in Thorpe St Andrew, Norfolk, and moved. Mark said: “We lived in quite a prosperous area but this can happen anywhere. We were driven out of our home.”
By Graham Jones, internet psychologist and author of 11 books on the web
There are practical steps victims can take if anything negative appears about them on social network sites.
Firstly, it is best not to reply. That just winds up the situation, making it more likely someone will respond and it will go even further.
And victims of negative behaviour shouldn’t talk about it on their own page. It is also a good idea to alert the social network to the abuse. And the police may need to be informed.
Currently not enough priority or resources have been given to the online arena and more specialist police officers are needed.
Several Government-led initiatives on the internet demonstrate a distinct lack of understanding of what’s happening in the online world .
Our politicians either do not understand the internet, are being given poor advice or are not listening to the advice they receive.
Forensic psychologist Dr Maureen Griffin says one in four children in this country send or receive these sexually explicit photograph and text messages, and children as young as 10 are involved.
The Department of Education has confirmed it is developing a programme for junior and senior second-level students on “personal safety”.
Now Dr Griffin wants to ensure that sexting is included in the programme.
She says it is extremely important that this issue is covered in the lesson plan.
Her call follows moves in the UK, where Education Secretary Michael Govehas bowed to pressure from teachers, parents and sexual health experts to update sex education in schools to include the dangers of online pornography and sexting.
Dr Griffin stressed that while parents have a primary role in monitoring their children’s phone use, schools are increasingly being faced with the problems.
Sexting, along with phone and internet pornography, is “rife among school children from third class upwards and sometimes even younger,” said Dr Griffin, whose company, Internet Safety for Schools, delivers programmes covering the whole area of cyber-bullying.
She said that children and teenagers using social media like Snapchat “don’t understand the wider implications of what they are doing.
“They think once they send the picture it’s gone and don’t understand that someone can take a screenshot … and send it on.
CONSEQUENCES
“They are distanced from sending these pictures because they are only pushing buttons on their phone and it removes them from thinking about the consequences”.
She added: “Everyone knows what to do if a man with a bag of sweets comes up and asks you to get into his car — but we need to break down the distance technology creates.”
The psychologist emphasises that “education is key” in helping young people to deal with peer pressure, giving them the tools to block and deal with sexting when it happens, but also reassuring them that they have the right to say “No”.