One-in-three online teens harassed

28-06-2007

by Charlie Taylor

Close to one-third of teenage internet users in the US have experienced harassment online, but most say they are still more likely to experience bullying offline.

That's according to a new report from Pew Internet & American Life Project which found that 32 percent of all online teens say they have been the targets of a range of annoying and potentially menacing internet activities -- such as receiving threatening messages; having their private e-mails or text messages forwarded on without consent; having an embarrassing picture posted without permission; or having rumours spread about them via the net.

The study indicates that girls are more likely than boys to be the targets of online harassment, as are teens who willingly share their identities and thoughts online via blogs and social networking sites such as Bebo, MySpace and Facebook.

The most common form of online harassment, according to American teens, comes in the form of having a private communication publicly posted or forwarded on to others without users' permission. Pew's research found that 15 percent of online teens said a private e-mail, instant message (IM) or text message had become public without their consent, while a further 13 percent said that fellow internet users had spread rumours about them.

In addition, 13 percent of teenage internet users said that someone had sent them a threatening or aggressive e-mail, IM or SMS, and 6 percent said embarrassing pictures of them had been posted online without their consent.

Online teens who set up blogs, uploaded photos, shared artwork or helped others build websites are more likely to report cyberbullying and harassment than their peers, the study found. Moreover, those who use social networks are also more likely to experience online bullying than those that don't. Overall, some 39 percent of social networking site teen users said they had suffered harassment online compared to just 23 percent of non-social network site users.

The study suggests that older teenagers are more likely to experience e-bullying, with 9 percent of online teens aged 12-14 years saying they have been threatened via e-mail, IM or text, compared with 16 percent of online teens aged 15-17 years.

Nonetheless, while instances of online bullying are increasing, according to the Pew Internet study as many as 67 percent said that harassment occurs more often offline. One-third of teens said that they thought that bullying was more likely to happen online, and three percent said they thought it happened both online and offline equally.