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Cyberbullying occurs when a minor uses technology to insult, harass, humiliate or otherwise harm another minor. Tools such
as e-mail messages, Instant Messaging Systems (IM), web logs, web sites, cell phones and text messages enable children and
teens to betray and publicly disgrace each other while remaining anonymous or emotionally detached.
The potential for harm is as immeasurable as the circulation possibilities of the internet; rumors, gossip and embarrassing
photos are forwarded to an unlimited audience rather than contained to a particular clique or school, causing victims to feel
the painful effects that much more. Technology offers a perceived distance between tormentor and victim because the exchanges
do not take place face-to-face. Psychologists believe that this distance has lead to an “unprecedented and often unintentional
degree of brutality, especially when combined with a typical adolescent's lack of impulse control and underdeveloped empathy
skills." (nytimes.com, August 26, 2004)
While lack of inhibition in online communication gives bullies a sense of freedom, it can also give them ammunition to use
against unsuspecting victims. Many cases of online harassment involve communications exchanged in good faith between friends.
Intimacies shared through e-mails, instant messages, text messages or digital photos become weapons of betrayal when friendships
deteriorate, and the resulting loss of trust can be profoundly painful, potentially scarring children into adulthood.
As kids' whereabouts shift from playgrounds and soccer fields to chat rooms and internet communities, so too follows the teasing,
taunting and cruelty. Cyberbullying is an alarming trend that follows children home from school and, increasingly, anywhere
they go, bringing new meaning to the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: "He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,
while he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere."
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