Shutting Down the Cyber-Bully

For two months now, Philip and Vienna have been flirting but they are not even close to being in an official relationship. A small number of their peers know or suspect that it was Vienna who sent the anonymous rose and card to Philip at school the Friday before Valentine’s Day. Regardless of whether their friendship develops into a romance, Philip highly values Vienna’s friendship, admiration and respect.

On a recent Friday, Philip and Vienna were in PE class playing softball. Philip hit a line drive squarely into Vienna’s ankle. Knowing my son gets particularly upset when he hurts somebody, it is almost certain that Philip apologized far too profusely to the point where Vienna started to get visibly embarrassed and some of their peers in PE probably even started snickering among themselves. Still, it should have been an isolated event of little long term consequence.

But on that Sunday afternoon, Philip took a look at Vienna’s formspring page. Formspring has gotten quite a lot of media attention lately on the topic of cyber-bullying. Some blame posts on formspring as what finally drove a promising teenage girl to commit suicide. Whether or not one believes formspring encourages the practice of cyber-bullying, it is certainly a good venue to practice it. The reason is formspring allows people to anonymously post messages directed to particular individuals. And despite the frequent rude postings, many teens including Vienna love their formspring accounts.

And so on Sunday, Philip saw a conversation that began with an anonymous party apologizing for hitting Vienna in the ankle during PE. Philip found it strange and disconcerting that someone was pretending to be him, especially since Vienna seemed annoyed “We’re good. PLEASE stop apologizing.” But then it got worse.

The pretender continued the dialog and made Philip look like an insensitive idiot by writing “Sure. Sorry.” With each new post from the pretender, he or she was making Philip appear more and more invasive. In turn, Vienna’s responses indicated she was getting progressively agitated and uncomfortable with the exchange. The pretender did an amazing job imitating the way Philip talks, although the pretender completely failed at imitating how Philip writes online. Eventually Vienna told the pretender not to speak to her. But the pretender kept pushing for two more posts that painted Philip as desperate to elicit a friendly response from Vienna without any respect for her wish to be left alone.

Philip was understandably horrified. He wanted to correct things with Vienna, but he also wanted to show respect for her request not to speak with her. He went into school Monday quite upset about the situation and not knowing what to do. But his concerns were soon put to rest.

Early in the day, Nancy approached Philip and asked him if he had seen Vienna’s formspring page. Philip lied and said no. Nancy then went on to explain that someone had been pretending to be Philip on Vienna’s formspring account and had gotten rude. Nancy told Philip that Vienna and her friends knew it was not Philip and that they had a reasonably good idea who was actually harassing Vienna as well as trying to make Philip look like a creep. In short, Vienna and her friends didn’t want Philip to worry about the matter in the slightest. On Monday after school, Philip and Vienna shared a brief online chat using Facebook’s instant messenger. Everything was cool. If anything, the event on formspring had brought the two one step closer. Vienna had clearly forgotten how embarrassed she had felt in PE.

Philip and Vienna’s experience demonstrates that teens are often wiser than we might expect. They are not always fooled or intimidated by cyber-bullies. But it also demonstrates that cyber-bullying is very much alive and well on the internet. For those who are less socially adept and confident, those facing a particularly stressful time in life, as well as those needing medical intervention to treat depression or anxiety, cyber-bullying can be the cause of great hurt, misunderstanding and worry. But for the majority of kids, I believe there is no need to panic. Under normal circumstances, a teen’s reputation is established in day-to-day interaction. That reputation is not likely to be suddenly be torn down by a cyber-bully, not even one crafty enough to imitate the finer details of Philip’s speaking mannerisms.