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In the early 1990s, lives and activities of the younger generation changed with introduction of the Internet. Service providers such as American Online (AOL) offered the opportunity to use the Internet for research and commercial activities and as a source of entertainment with opportunities to engage in online games and cyhercommunications (i.e., chatrooms, instant messaging, email). According to Willard (2007), young people have fully embraced the Internet and other mobile communication technologies such as cell phones for communicating with friends, making new friends, seeking information, and creating websites and blogs. Although most uses of cybertechnology are entertaining and beneficial, there are increasing problems associated with adolescents using the Internet to send and post cruel or harmful text and images to harass and bully their peers.
In 1995, two million children were accessing the Internet. Ten years later, the number had surpassed 77 million (Willard, 2007). By 2008, according to Lenhart, Arafeh, Smith, and MacGill (2008), 94% of teens were using the Internet or email and 85% of teens, ages 12-17, were engaging in some form of electronic personal communication including sending and receiving emails, text messaging, and posting comments on social networking sites. Among teen Internet users, 89% go online from home, 77% from school, and 60% from the local public library. Teens rely primarily on the phone for interpersonal communication; 39% use cell phones and 36% text message friends on a daily basis (Lenhart et al., 2008).
Cyberbullying
Electronic bullying, more commonly known as cyberbullying, is described as the act of sending or posting harmful or cruel text or images using the Internet or other communication devices (Willard, 2007). It involves the use of information and communication technologies like email, cell phone and pager text messages, defamatory personal websites, and defamatory online personal polling websites to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group intended to harm others (Li, 2007). Some of the more common forms of online aggression used by adolescents are listed in Table 1.
Cyberbullying can occur in different formats. Adolescents most likely use:
(a) Personal websites, or social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, where individuals create "profiles" to communicate with others. Profiles are a collection of information that describes interests.
(b) Personal web logs...