♥CASE STUDY (LOCAL)♥

Dec 15, 2008

Cyber bullies turn vicious
More teens falling prey to online intimidation, which is seen to be escalating in intensity
By Tan Weizhen




A 16-YEAR-OLD girl here created fake profiles on popular social networking sites MySpace and Facebook with a single-minded purpose: To befriend those she disliked in school.
Once the connections were made, the teen turned on her schoolmates, hurling nasty insults at them.
The bullying was reminiscent of a now infamous 2006 case where American teenager Megan Meier killed herself after being taunted online. In that case, the mother of a former friend created a phoney online profile to bully the girl.
According to psychologist Vanessa von Auer, the Singaporean girl was discovered by the school before her victims could suffer any deep emotional scars.
Psychologists, counsellors and teachers, however, are worried that the methods of Singaporean cyber bullies have morphed into something more vicious than before.
A 2006 survey found that a quarter of 3,488 Singaporean students polled had been victimised by cyber bullies.
Traditionally, these bullies target victims through e-mail messages or forum postings.
Now, experts say, the bullying has turned 'viral'.
The rising popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, YouTube videos as well as multi-media messages has made the humiliation of the victims more widespread and more immediate than ever.
'The new breed of bullies is narcissist. They treat the Internet as their stage, with an instant audience of thousands - or even millions,' said Dr Carol Balhetchet, the director of youth services at the Singapore Children's Society.
'It just takes one to get it going, and it's like wildfire. Online, users can see what others are doing, even if they're half a continent away,' said Dr Balhetchet.
Psychologists are worried about the effects of cyber bullying and how the attacks may be escalating in frequency and intensity.
'Say something happens to a child at school, and when they get home, they realise that everyone is talking about it on MSN. People are spreading it like wildfire,' said therapist Katy Harris.
Referring to a case last month where an American teenager committed suicide live via a webcam in front of netizens, some of whom had egged him on, she added: 'The ante has been upped.'
In Singapore, students commonly band together in blogs and social networks to intimidate victims, say teachers and school counsellors.
Now, many in the education field are taking steps to put an end to that.
Staff from Ngee Ann Polytechnic monitor blogs and social networks with tip-offs from their students.
At a secondary school in the west, teachers picked up on the trend when the victims turned to school counsellors.
'Most of them are cases of students who cyber bully others through blogs, naming their victims, then telling the whole school to read their blogs,' said one teacher, who did not want to be named.
A recent report from the government-sanctioned Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (Aims) listed cyber bullying among teenagers as a concern.
And in focus groups, teachers here spoke of how they had witnessed the effects of cyber bullying on their students.
One related how a group of boys bullied a girl and uploaded the video online. The girl was traumatised and faced problems getting along with the boys after that, even crying in class.
Aims recommended that an annual fund and agency be set up for the protection of minors. They would, among other things, promote cyber safety.

• Adapted from:http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_314573.html


• All images were taken from:http://images.google.com.sg/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi

After reading this article, I feel that instead of bullying someone you don't like because you don't like their behavior etc., you should either confront that person and clear the airs between the both of you or the best thing to do is you ignore the person. I also think that if you are bullied in any ways, don't keep your emotions to yourself as you'll be really hurt in the end. Instead, tell your parents or teachers what you have been through and surely they'll help you.

Okays i guess this would be my last post so...Byes(:

I think i've done quite a good job so...

give me a good grade ahhXD hehe

♥INSPIRATIONAL USE OF NET APPLICATION♥

Hihi!:D


Are you bored and don't know what to do?
Fear not!;P I can help you(:
Instead of logging on your computer and doing something that might risk your life..
You can...


1) Chat with your friends and relatives online.
2) Go to educational website like http://www.funbrain.com/ , http://www.kidsknowit.com/ or http://www.britannica.com/ and explore their site. You might be surprise with amazing things you can do there.
3) Go to youtube.com and listen to your favourite songs.
4) Go to http://www.straitstimes.com/ and read up on the latest news.



(a girl playing educational games on the computer.)

Okays that is all for now.. i'm going to eat dinner so..bye!:)

CYBER WELLNESS TIPS (MSN)

Hihi! I'm back(:

Okay, i'm going to share with you the Cyber Wellness values and also tips on Cyber Wellness..


Cyber Wellness Values:

~ Respect and Responsibility-don't use vulgarities, deflame anyone or say negative remarks about anyone. Respect others.
~ Street Smart/Astuteness-don't be gullible and tell others sensitive stuff about yourself.
~ Be Vigilant-read the infomation given to you before clicking any links.
~ Study & Play-no one says you can't play computer games, but just remember to not let it take over your life. Studies always comes first before play, so balance both your study and play time.


♥♥Cyber Wellness Tips:♥♥


1) Think before you say, as not to accidentally reveal any personal infomation (e.g. where you live, which school you go to, etc) to the other party.
2) Its best not to open links in any email or when you receive it through MSN messenger as sometimes it could contain viruses, especially if the sender is someone you don't know.
3) Don't accept strangers' friend request.
4) When creating a nickname for yourself, don't put a nickname in which reveals your real name. For example, you are called Lee Ah Ho, do not put 'LeeAhHo' as your nickname but you can choose to put anything you like as a nickname. All right, lets say you like to eat apples, your nickname could be 'apple246' something like that.

(You might not know who is watching your every move...)

Okays that is all for today, remember to check my blog for more updates(: Goodbye and goodnight everyone!!:D

DANGERS OF NET APPLICATIONS (MSN)

Hello!(: i'm back and today i'm going to share with you the dangers of msn so read on..

♥♥Dangers of MSN:♥♥

Okay, do you actually know what are the dangers we might face using MSN? Do you think whatever you reveal to the other party is harmless? Well, fact is, its not. Its dangerous and you are risking your life as well as your love ones' life just by telling someone your infomation. There are always consequences to every action you make so becareful. Take a look at the following to find out...

1) Anybody can add you just by searching for the type of people they want to make friends and by looking through your profile but you don't know if the person is a online predator or not as we don't know if they are who they seem to be.

2) Children have the option to accept or deny contacts from joining their list of people to talk to and they tend to accept anyone who request to add them in their contact, this opens the doors to pedophiles.

3) Sometimes we may accidentally reveal our personal infomation which we shouldn't and that has the potential danger to open the doors to online predators.

4) A common danger some of us might face is online-bullying (cyber bullying). It is the newest form of bullying which threatens school aged children and as time goes by, more and more children are becoming victims of this trend.

5) Another danger we might face is that sometimes people would send us emails containing viruses which can attack the computer operating system and destroy all of the files in that computer.

-2 short stories of what i encounted online:

I remembered a few times when i was online, i received spams through MSN messenger but luckily i knew what to do and just close that particular chat instead of clicking the link that was sent to me. There was also a few times strangers befriended me by adding my address but i knew that i should not add anyone i don't know and deny the friend request. These situations are common nowadays and i think people should not fall for these type of scams and remember not to add strangers' email address.

(This is a photo of a MSN messenger spam, sorry if its unclear)

Okay thats all for now. I'm going to post another blog post and its going to be about cyber wellness tips so look out for it!;)

INTERESTING FACTS OF NET APPLICATION (MSN)

Hey all!:D well this partly some of the infomation about msn so ya...check it out(:

♥♥Interesting facts about msn:♥♥

1) MSN was formerly known as: The Microsoft Network.

2) The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995.

3) MSN was once a simple online service for Windows 95, an early experiment at interactive multimedia content on the Internet, and one of the most popular dial-up Internet service providers.

4)Microsoft used the MSN brand name to promote numerous popular web-based services in the late 1990s.

5)MSN's Internet portal, MSN.com, is currently the 9th most visited domain name on the Internet.

(MSN messenger logo)

Okay there's more but thats all for now. Bye!!XD

INTRODUCTION

Hi everyone,

This is my first time writing a blog and i'm going to share with you what my blog is all about.

Basically its about the dangers and inspirational use of net applications like MSN/Blogger/Facebook etc and i'm also gonna share with you the 4 cyber wellness values too.

So..look out for new posts on my blog!

But for now bye!(:

DANGER IS LURKING ANYWHERE ON THE INTERNET...BEWARE!! DON'T BE A VICTIM!

USE THE COMPUTER WISELY!!