One of the leading children's charities in the U.K., NCH, and the mobile virtual network operator Tesco Mobile, have released a report (see left) about children being bullied and threatened by cellular phone SMS and photos.
The report, "Putting U in the picture: Mobile bullying survey 2005," is based on a survey conducted between March 3 and April 6 2005 of 770 children aged 11 to 19. The report says, "Bullying can ruin children's lives. The consequences of it can vary widely, from making children upset or unhappy to, in rare cases, suicide. Bullying via mobile phone is a new and particularly nasty form of bullying."
The survey asked respondents whether anyone has used a camera phone to take a photo that made them feel "uncomfortable, embarrased or threatened." Ten percent of the children surveyed answered yes, more than the answer for bullying via e-mail or an online chat room.
Camera phone problems
The survey also asks whether the incident of feeling uncomfortable, embarrassed or threatened resulted in the photo being transmitted to someone else. Seventeen percent believed the photo was transmitted to at least one other person.
The report says almost four million young people (I don't know the definition of "young people") own a camera phone in the U.K. and the number is expected to double by 2007.
Bullying or not?
An article in The Guardian summarizes the report and also discusses an "extreme example" of a camera phone incident. The newspaper says a girl in Dublin allowed her boyfriend to take an "intimate" camera phone photo of her.
The boy sent the image to two friends who sent it to other and the police estimated that within two hours the photo was transmitted to 10,000 handsets, according to John Carr, new technology advisor to the NCH.
"It was not intended as bullying, but the distress to the girl was immense," he says.
Frankly, I don't see that's a particularly good example to highlight the problem. It's a question of trusting a boyfriend. I'm sure there are other -- serious -- examples of bullying.
Web site, SMS help
NCH and Tesco Mobile have established a Web site, StopTextBully.com, to provide information and assistance (see below).
Also, Tesco has launched a text-back service where transmitting an SMS message, "bully" to 60000, will result in the user getting information about where to get advice.
Tesco will donate all the revenues generated from that SMS service to NCH to help with its efforts to stop mobile bullying.
I hate to get cynical about child welfare agencies, particularly foreign ones, but a study revealing yet another threat to our children, commissioned by an agency which gets funded to deal with threats to children, just seems, well, self-serving.
Mind you, I'm not saying cell-phone bullying doesn't happen, at least in England, but is it really any more different than a traditional schoolyard punk stealing one's lunch money? The medium does not change the message. The fact a cellphone is involved is almost incidental.
Posted by: Tychocat | Friday, June 10, 2005 at 07:24 AM