Link: Text bullies devastate family – Wairarapa Times-Age – Mar 6 2006 6:00PM – localnews.
Merciless text bullying of a high profile Wairarapa pupil for months by a "pack" of teenage classmates led to the parents withdrawing their child from school.
I clearly have a much different perspective on bullying than the person(s) featured in this article.
SMS bullying is as serious to the victim as any other form of bullying. It’s leading into the home and to the child’s bedroom, in fact everywhere the child goes with the phone! They cannot escape the bullying…it’s relentless!
The research and studies carried out in this area shows this is on the increase. CEOP (the Child Exploitation and Online Protection semi-police body) established by the UK government, together with leading charities lead by NCH (National Children’s Home) and retailers like Tesco who have funded research all acknowledge the threat that “textbullying” is having. It is not just name calling but an entire series of factors that leads to bullying.
My company is launching TexTexT – an automatic silent transfer of copies of texts (no charge) to a password controlled webarchive set up in an Outlook Express fashion. This can easily act also as a Parental Tool enabling parents to check the actual content of their kids’ texts in and out. Yes I know that kids don’t want to be spied upon but that’s another issue…and deleted messages are caught!
So this is a very serious subject. There are recorded suicides amongst youngsters because of textbullying – “if only I had known” are the parents sentiments! Don’t underestimate this sad phenomenum
Mark