Liberty students: cyberbullying targets younger kids

By John w. Goodwin jr.

LIBERTY — The message and images presented during a cyber-bullying seminar here were the high points of discussion among students this week, but some say younger kids should be the focus.

Liberty High School students Haneen Dadi, 17, Lauren Wine, 17, Shanise White, 16, and Andrew Grinstein, 17, spent Tuesday afternoon listening to stories about cyber-bullying and Internet harassment during a series of I-SAFE Inc. seminars.

All four teens, like many of their peers, have cell phones with picture capability and are members of Internet communities such as MySpace.com.

Their prevailing thought is that younger students — kids in junior high school range and lower — would be more receptive to the messages about cyber-bullying.

Lauren said cyber-bullying is more prevalent at the junior high school level than with students in high school. She said it does happen, but she is unaware of any instances in the high school.

Andrew said high school students tend to already know the downside to such harmful and illegal activities.

“Once you get into high school, you pretty much know what is right from what is wrong,” he said.

School Resource Officer Eric Sewell said reporting of cyber-bullying has been more prevalent in the lower grades.

Junior high school students were included in the I-SAFE seminars.

According to its Web site, I-SAFE is a nonprofit foundation whose mission is to educate and empower youth to make their Internet experiences safe and responsible. The goal is to educate students on how to avoid dangerous, inappropriate, or unlawful online behavior.

The seminars this week dealt with students from fifth to 12th grades.

Haneen said she thought the most effective part of the seminar are the stories dealing with people who have been the victims of cyber-bullying. Keeping those often tragic stories fresh in the minds of all students will curb the activity on all levels, she said.

Shanise said the program should continue in the future but be conducted in smaller groups. She said students seemed more willing to have serious discussion about the topic after the seminar ended and in smaller groups of friends.

The teens said the most beneficial part of the seminar for most high school students were the safety tips about how to safely operate in an Internet community like MySpace. They say most teens follow set safety standards, but a reminder is certainly a good thing.

jgoodwin@vindy.com