Dr Darryl's Blog

Cyberbullying is on the rise and out of control.

This is the reason why I have created a special website called www.cybersafetydoctor.com.au which seeks to bring the whole community together to fight this growing and insidious assault. The site provides a course for students, parents and teachers. Together we can make a difference.

There have been several cases where teenagers were driven to committing suicide because of cyberbullying. The case of 14-year-old Megan Meiers made headlines worldwide because it was found that she was being tormented by her adult neighbor, the neighbor’s daughter, and an employee of the neighbor, who spread a cruel online hoax about her. A 13-year-old boy Ryan Halligan from Rhode Island in the USA was tormented for months and called gay until he committed suicide. A mother from Melbourne, Karen Rae, blames cyberbullies for her 14-year-old daughter’s suicide.

But one case is already one too many. Perhaps the measure of this alarming trend is the fact that this phenomenon now has an unofficial name: cyberbullycide.

It had to happen. It's also a lesson in life. It's just that the medium is different.

The newspaper article cited that an Adelaide supermarket supervisor has been sacked after she posted on Facebook a "heat of the moment" comment about another worker.

Perhaps because we're not face-to-face, we sometimes lose perspective and don't always stop and think. It's an age-old lesson though. It comes in various forms such as, "Count to 10 before you answer," "bite your tongue" and so on.

It doesn't matter if its email, Facebook, hi5, My Space or Twitter for example or...in a shopping cue or driving on a highway, it's about stopping before you say something stupid or act the same way.

It's just that we now have social media as as additional tool to verbalise what we feel and think, but the lesson is the same. Stop and think first....it could cost you your job not to mention irretrievably sabotaging relationships.