Cyber Bullying, on Facebook

Facebook has become the new playground for school bullies, and as kids head back to school, parents need to keep a watchful eye on their children’s use of social media and new technologies. Based on McAfee’s 2012 Teen Internet Behavior Study, I would love to put you in touch with a parent safety and internet privacy expert to talk about how technology are endangering students when it comes to cyber bullying and cheating, and how parents can help protect their children.

Cyber Bullying: Back to school time is also a time when kids have to prepare tore-enter the intense social world they probably tuned out during the summer. As summer ends, parents should take the time to review the dangers of cyber bullying with them.

·         Almost one in four of teens claimed to be targets of cyber bullying and two-thirds of all teens have witnessed cruel behavior online.

o   Parents remain oblivious, as only one in ten parents is aware of their teens being targets of cyber bullying.

o   Facebook has become the new school yard for bullies with 92.6% of teens saying that cruel behavior takes place on Facebook, with only 23.8% on Twitter, 17.7% on MySpace and 15.2% via Instant Messenger.

·         When witnessing others being attacked, 40% of teens have told the person to stop, 20.7% have told an adult and 6.3% joined in.

·         When being attacked themselves, 65.8% of teens responded to the attacker (with 35% responding in person) an unsettling 15.4% avoided school, and an alarming 4.5% have been in a physical fight with their attacker.

Cheating: In this age of technology, it's not surprising that students are finding creative ways to get the most out of smart phones and social networks to do well in school.  Only 23% of parents express concern about their teen going online to cheat in school, yet nearly half of all teens (48%) admit they’ve looked up answers to a test or assignment online.  Specifically:

·         22% Cheated on specifically on a test via online or mobile phone; while only 5% of parents believed their children did this.

·         15.8% of teens have admitted to cheating on a test by looking up answers on their phone

o   Only 3.2% of parents thought their teens cheated this way. 

·         14.1% of teens admitted to looking up how to cheat on a test online.

o   Overall, 77.2% of parents said they were not worried about their teens cheating online. 

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