WASHINGTON (AP) - Catherine Devine had her first brush with an online bully in seventh grade, before she'd even ventured onto the Internet. Someone set up the screen name "devinegirl" and, posing as Catherine, sent her classmates instant messages full of trashy talk and lies. "They were making things up about me, and I was the most innocent 12-year-old ever," Devine remembers. "I hadn't even kissed anybody yet."
As she grew up, Devine, now 22, learned to thrive in the electronic village. But like other young people, she occasionally stumbled into one of its dark alleys.
A new Associated Press-MTV poll of youth in their teens and early 20s finds that most of them _ 56 percent _ have been the target of some type of online taunting, harassment or bullying, a significant increase over just two years ago. A third say they've been involved in "sexting," the sharing of naked photos or videos of sexual activity. Among those in a relationship, 4 out of 10 say their partners have used computers or cellphones to abuse or control them.
Three-fourths of the young people said they consider these darker aspects of the online world, sometimes broadly called "digital abuse," a serious problem.
They're not the only ones.
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2 comments:
I think Joe gets “Cyber Bullied” everyday, don’t you?
If the kids are not tough enough, then they need to learn to deal. Most of this cyber-bullying B.S. (another term made up by the MSM) is all about how whiny gay kids and fat kids are picked on. Boo Hoo. The "bullys" are teaching you a lesson: don't be a pervert and don't be lazy.
And someone tell their Barry-loving parents to stop STEALING from my country!
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