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Being the most Internet-connected country in the world has opened the way for a new form of bullying in South Korean schools, with victims being forced to pay for WiFi access for their tormentors.

Bullied students are made to sign up for subscriptions that cost around $40 a month, then to turn on the WiFi hot spot function on their smartphones.

This allows the bullies to essentially take over the phone’s wireless connection, permitting them to surf the web for free – and also drawing down the phone’s battery because there are multiple users at one time.

“I am very worried my beloved smartphone may be worn out,” one 16-year-old boy old wrote anonymously in a web bulletin in January.

“I really want to cry. I am posting this because seriously, I don’t know what I am supposed to do after the semester starts.”

Around 20 million South Koreans, 40 per cent of the entire population, own smartphones.

While new technology has expanded the range of rewards for bullies, the act itself is an old problem in South Korea’s rigid school system, previously showing up in forms common around the world such as physical violence or taunting.

A survey by the Korean Federation of Teachers’ Association and the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said that 4.1 per cent of schoolchildren said they had been bullied, with some desperate students even taking their own lives.

About half a dozen suicides among middle and high school students linked to bullying since late last year has forced the government to start prosecution of teenage bullying suspects and introduce plainclothes police patrols in some schools.

But the changes in bullying may take some tackling, with traditional responses lacking teeth, education experts said.

“New schemes such as WiFi stealing are blurring the boundaries of school violence,” said Park Jong-chul, a high school teacher who is part of a teachers’ group that researches bullying.

“Some people say this is not a threat nor violence. (But) we need a new definition for school violence in terms of laws and norms.”

Globe & Mail – ‘Gimme your WiFi’: New bullies emerge in smartphone-crazy Korea

Employees who are harassed at workplace may be more vulnerable to stress, leading to mental and physical ailments like higher body weight and heart disease.

Employees with abusive bosses often deal with the situation in ways that inadvertently make them feel worse.

In at least one extreme case, workplace bullying has even been linked to suicide.

Gary Namie, a social psychologist who directs the Workplace Bullying Institute said that bullying is “a form of abuse which carries tremendous health harm.”

A new study surveyed nearly 500 employees about how they dealt with abusive supervision.

According to study author Dana Yagil of the University of Haifa in Israel, abusive supervisors are bosses who humiliate and insult their employees, never let them forget their mistakes, break promises and isolate employees from other co-workers,

About 13 to 14 per cent of Americans work under an abusive supervisor, Yagil said.

Her study on Israeli workers found that abused employees tend to cope by avoiding their bosses, seeking support from co-workers and trying to reassure themselves.

As useful as those strategies might sound, however, they actually made employees feel worse.

“It is understandable that employees wish to reduce the amount of their contact with an abusive boss to the minimum, but the strategies they use actually further increase their stress instead of reducing it,” Yagil said.

“This may happen because these strategies are associated with a sense of weakness and perpetuate the employee”s fear of the supervisor.”

Avoiding a workplace bully might seem easier than avoiding a school bully, given that employees can quit their jobs. But workers get caught in a cycle of stress, Namie said. An online survey of targeted workers by the WBI found that they put up with the abuse for an average of 22 months.

The stress of the bullying may itself lead to bad decision-making, Namie said and sometimes this cycle ends with tragedy.

Namie works as an expert legal witness on bullying. In one upcoming case, he said, a woman put up with daily barrages of screaming abuse from her boss for a year.

By the end, she was working 18-hour days, trying to shield the employees under her from her boss’ tyranny, Namie asserted.

Finally, she and several of her co-workers put together a 25-page complaint to human resources. Nothing happened, until she was called in for a meeting with senior management. Namie said that the woman knew she would be fired for making the complaint.

“Rather than allowing herself to be terminated, she bought a pistol, went to work, left three suicide notes, and she took her own life at work,” he said.

Indian Express – Workplace bully victims struggling to cope with ‘fatal’ stress

Seoul (CNN) — It took two teenage suicide cases due to school bullying last year in South Korea for people to notice something was very wrong.
The students lived in different cities and went to different schools, but both jumped to their deaths after saying they could not take the pain of being bullied any longer.

Over the last few weeks, the country’s media has been filled with reports about tragic cases of school bullying. This week, two more students from the same class reportedly took their own lives — one was the victim of bullying, the other a powerless friend who had stood by and watched the abuse.

Experts say the cases highlight how desperately many South Korean teenagers need a means to escape the bullying as well as a way to cope.

Park Han-wool, a 17-year-old high-school student, said he has been bullied for the past six years. He has been isolated from other classmates, beaten during school trips and locked up in the classroom.

“I wanted to tell people about it. I did tell my parents, but they didn’t take it seriously thinking it was an issue between friends,” he said.

The bullying became so bad that Park tried to jump from his school building in front of his teachers, but he was stopped by the police.

He is now involved in creating a music video with other teenagers to raise awareness of school bullying, an issue he says that was not taken seriously until recently.

The tools of bullying vary from forcing victims to run errands and steal, to sexual assault, confinement and gang beatings. With reports of other incidents of teenage violence n schools, including the assault of teachers and rape of younger students, many South Koreans are asking, “what is wrong with our kids?”

The answer, according to some analysts, lies within the hyper-competitive nature of South Korean society. As the country continues to enjoy success economically, Korean students are being pushed into an environment of competition to succeed.

“At school, students don’t see their peers as friends but as competition and believe that they need to beat others,” said Dr. Bae Joo-mi, a specialist at the Korea Youth Counseling Institute.

In a classroom environment in which students are forced to prove themselves, those who fall behind in grades turn to other means to show they are more powerful, taking on the role of the aggressor, Bae explained.

The family support system also fails many adolescents.

“The parents heavily invest in raising their children to be successful and skillful in various fields, but when it comes to raising them to be moral and have healthy personalities I think there has been a lack of interest,” Bae said.

Schools and teachers have been criticized for turning the other way in bullying cases and trying to cover it up. Local governments have gone into a frenzy of drafting up new measures to hold bullies accountable and prevent school violence.

Experts such as Bae believe it may take more than simply increasing monitoring of school violence. What students need is a healthier environment to learn more social skills and know how to deal with their problems, they say.

A survey conducted in 2010 by the Foundation for Preventing Youth Violence, a counseling center established more than 15 years ago, indicated that more than 20% of those surveyed said they had been bullied. Of those victims, more than 30% said they felt suicidal due to bullying.

The same group said last year that the number of counseling cases of students seeking help from suicidal feelings doubled from the previous year.

The concern is that students have not been able to learn how to find solutions to their problems in a rigid educational environment and are now turning to suicide as their last resort.

Counseling groups urge the government and schools to step up and punish those accountable, while keeping the victims safe from harm.

CNN International – South Korea’s school bullying has deadly consequences

What do you think of your Zooey Deschanel now? “Adorkable” doesn’t seem like the right word to describe her Allure photo shoot, does it?

She doesn’t really want to know what you think. The New Girl star, who turns 32 today, protects herself from online gossip and mean comments. “I can’t go on Gawker,” she tells Allure. “I actually think the writing is really funny, but there is a chance that somebody is undercutting me,” she says.

Her fear of bullies goes back to her early school days. “Girls spit in my face, people were so mean to me, I’d cry every day.”

Deschanel is aware of how closely she’s associated with her hairstyle. “I’m bangs and eyes,” she says. “It’s who I am. There have been periods when I’ve grown my bangs out, but I always cut them back, so it’s like, why go through the trouble?”

The interview was done before Deschanel and her husband, Ben Gibbard, separated, but she says during times of heartache, “If I’m sad, I listen to happy music.”

USA Today – Zooey Deschanel bullied in school: ‘Girls spit in my face’

Bullying is an old problem that isn’t going away – and some argue for teens it’s getting worse. Many adults can remember being bullied while growing up. Now the Internet and social media have added a new layer to the torment, but there are some local teens taking prevention into their own hands.

Like most teens, Penn High School student Keri Richmond spends a lot of time on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. Unfortunately, not every one of the people she encounters is a “friend.”

“Somebody made a Facebook group that you could like and it said, ‘Keri Richmond is a beep,’” says Richmond.

While the confident teenager tried to laugh it off, Richmond says it still stung. And this isn’t the only example of bullying Richmond has seen online. Mean Twitter accounts targeting her friends and classmates have been popping up all year.

“I think it is a huge problem,” says Richmond. “Now, everybody has an iPhone. Everybody is always on Facebook. Always on Twitter. technology is our generation and that is how people can front things. They get on and they type something mean about something and they don’t realize the harmful effects it has on people.”

Recently, someone started an anonymous Twitter account called “Penn Love” to combat the online bullying – the user has been tweeting uplifting messages.

“And that person wants to stay anonymous,” says Richmond. “People have tried to contact them and tried to figure out who it is. But they are not doing this for publicity. They are doing this strictly because they want to make a change and they want to see something positive instead of negativity.”

At Oregon Davis High School in Hamlet, a group of students is making their anti-bullying message loud and clear. Chante Pittman came up with the idea for the Bobcat Voice. Pittman and her friend Danielle Holmquest decided to start the group after they had been the targets of bullies. The idea is to discourage bullying and provide an outlet to teens who find themselves a target.

“I just want to be there to help them. Because I was to the point where I was suicidal,” says Pittman.

There are only about 300 kids in the school but as soon as they started advertising the anti-bullying group, 24 upperclassmen had joined the ranks.

“I know what to look for and I know how these students feel and I can relate to them and try and make a difference in their lives,” says Pittman.

The kids hope to not only make a difference in their school, but they also hope other schools will follow their lead.

WSBT.com – Teens stand up to bullies

CLUSTER of bullying claims is poised to go before Victoria’s courts.

And a boy, 15, who asserts fellow students at two Mornington Peninsula schools bullied, assaulted and threatened him, also has begun Supreme Court action.

Also, in court documents filed this week, a young woman claims school bullies threatened to stab her, and posted abusive messages on Facebook.

The lawyer for the two boys, Kim Bainbridge, of Garden and Green Lawyers, said he was handling a dozen writs related to schoolyard bullying in the state.

In one, it was alleged a child had been admitted for psychiatric care.

“The parents that come to us . . . do so after they have absolutely exhausted all the other avenues with the school,” Mr Bainbridge said.

The 15-year-old, who is suing through his mother, says he endured six years of bullying at St Brendan’s Primary at Somerville and Padua College in Mornington.

He claims the schools failed to heed complaints, protect him, or discipline the bullies.

The teen, who has Asperger’s syndrome, says that as a result he suffered chronic anxiety, panic attacks, depression and developed an eating disorder.

The writ names the local parish priests at the time as defendants. But Mr Bainbridge said this was a legal requirement, and the schools would be pursued.

According to court documents, the 10-year-old boy claims he has suffered nightmares, insomnia and a severe psychological disturbance.

The young woman is seeking damages from Braemar College, an independent school at Woodend, claiming she was assaulted, threatened, intimidated, harassed and slandered by students between 2005 and 2009.

In a statement of claim lodged in the County Court this week, the woman, now 19, says she was excluded from class activities, called names, made fun of, and that rude and abusive text message were sent and demeaning messages posted on Facebook about her.

As a result, she suffered depression, a social anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress, and agoraphobia.

Braemar College principal Russell Deer said the case predated his tenure and he would investigate, but bullying was not condoned.

An Education Department spokesman said bullying was not tolerated at schools.

Herald Sun – Schoolchildren from across the state to launch lawsuits

On the same day a funeral was held for a 14-year-old victim of cyber bullying, the Federal Government launched a website to help young people avoid being bullied on social networking sites.

Melbourne girl Sheniz Erkan reportedly took her own life on Monday after allegedly being bullied online.

Cases such as hers have prompted the Government to create the new website on how to handle internet bullying and how to block bullies from sites.

Minister for School Education Peter Garrett says the Easy Guide to Socialising Online provides information about different social media sites.

“You can get access to cyber safety tips and fact sheets and there’s also information about an Easy Guide to Socialising Online,” he said.

“I guess the key thing here is that we’re very aware that we need to provide information for those young people who are using the internet so that they can protect themselves,” he said.

In some cases bullies write offensive remarks on personal sites or they hack into someone’s account to send messages.

NSW Anti-Discrimination Board president Stepan Kerkyasharian says the Government’s website is overdue.

“There is of course an increased usage of social media and therefore commensurate with that there is also an increase in bullying,” he said.

“Unfortunately many people think that by posting something in Facebook or in one of the social mediums they are simply talking to their own friends.

“The reality is that they are not talking to their own friends; they’re not talking to their own social circle. The message they’re posting denigrating someone is there for the whole world to see.”

Mr Kerkyasharian says his organisation has received many complaints about internet bullying.

NSW Commissioner for Children and Young People, Megan Mitchell, says bullying must be stopped by any means and parents have a role to play.

“The advent of new technologies opens up more opportunities in the social media context,” she said.

“I think the key thing is that parents need to communicate with their kids about all aspects of their lives and children need to feel confident they can talk to their parents and be listened to.

“And so just like we ask about their days at school, we really also need to be asking about their day online.”

774 ABC Melbourne – New website helps young people block bullies

NEW YORK, Jan 11 (Reuters) – More than 10 per cent of parents around the world say their child has been cyberbullied and nearly one-fourth know a youngster who has been a victim, according to a new Ipsos/Reuters poll.

And more than three-quarters of people questioned in the global survey thought cyberbullying differed from other types of harassment and warranted special attention and efforts from parents and schools.

“The data clearly shows an appetite among global citizens for a targeted response to cyberbullying,” said Keren Gottfried, of the global research firm Ipsos, which conducted the poll.

But, she added, whether or not schools live up to this mandate is in the hands of educators.

The online poll of more than 18,000 adults in 24 countries, 6,500 of whom were parents, showed the most widely reported vehicle for cyberbullying was social networking sites likes Facebook, which were cited by 60 per cent.

Mobile devices and online chat rooms were a distant second and third, each around 40 per cent.

While the report showed that awareness of cyberbullying was relatively high, with two-thirds saying they heard, read or had seen information on the phenomenon, cultural and geographic differences abounded.

In Indonesia, 91 per cent said they knew about cyberbullying, in which a child, group of children or younger teen intentionally intimidates, threatens or embarrasses another child or group through the use of information technology such as social media or mobile devices.

Australia followed at 87 per cent, while Poland and Sweden trailed slightly behind. But only 29 per cent in Saudi Arabia, and 35 per cent in Russia, had heard of cyberbullying.

In the United States, where cases of cyberbullying have been widely reported to have been linked to teen-age suicides, the figure was 82 per cent.

Gottfried described the survey as the first global study of its kind and a benchmark to where assessments of cyberbullying vary.

“The key to this study is that it measures parental awareness of cyberbullying, not actual rates of the behaviour,” she said. “While we can’t speculate on what actually happens, it is quite possible that the proportion of children actually being cyberbullied is in fact understated, since we are speaking with the parents, not the kids.”

In India 32 per cent of parents said their child had experienced cyberbullying, followed by 20 per cent in Brazil and 18 per cent in Canada and Saudi Arabia and 15 per cent in the United States.

The highest incidence of people knowing of a child in the community being targeted was in Indonesia, with 53 per cent. But only 14 per cent there said their child had been cyberbullied — less than in Canada, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Overall, parents in France and Spain reported some of the lowest incidence of cyberbullying either of their own child or one in their community.

Gottfried said that future studies could show whether there was a trend toward greater awareness of cyberbullying, and shed some light on what affects parental awareness.

The complete list of results and countries can be found at ipsosglobaladvisor.com.

Vancouver Sun – Cyberbullying a problem around the globe: Poll

Surrey students can start the New Year off right by helping end bullying in their schools.

The city of Surrey, Surrey RCMP and CUPE launched a new film competition this week to encourage local youth to make movies with an anti-bullying message to help make Surrey a safer community.

“We need to draw attention to the effects of bullying and send a strong message to both students and adults that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated in our schools, our workplaces, online, or anywhere in our communities,” said Mayor Dianne Watts, upon announcement of the initiative, which forms part of the city’s crime reduction strategy.

The contest is calling for all budding activists and young filmmakers to submit short films from 30 seconds to a minute long. The clips will be judged in two categories: “junior” for students aged 14-15 and “senior” for students aged 16-18. The deadline for submissions is February 6. Winners will be announced on anti-bullying day, Febrauary  29. The top films will be broadcast on Shaw TV and later screened at a film festival.

“This initiative will hopefully not only shine a light on the issue of bullying but also engage the youth of this community,” said Surrey RCMP Asst. Commissioner Fraser MacRae. ”Dialogue on this issue is key to moving forward and changing individual and collective attitudes on bullying.”

Learn more at www.surrey.ca/stopbullying.

Vancouver Sun – Surrey anti-bullying contest turns student filmmakers into activists

My first memory of being bullied goes back to Grade 3. The exact details are blurred beyond recall – or perhaps purged; our bodies do much self-healing without our being at all aware of the process. All that is left of that early experience is an image of me in the middle of a class of 8-year-olds, fearful and in tears. What came before and what came after, I do not recall.

The next year we moved to another city and I attended a different school. What did I do differently? I don’t remember, but I got through the rest of my schooling without being seriously victimized again, even though there were bullies around. I learned to be careful about people and places; I didn’t dare go into the boys’ washroom in my high school until I was in Grade 11, by which time the 20-year-old toughs in Tech Voc were a little less intimidating and I felt it was almost safe to stand for a minute at the urinal with my back turned. Bullying wasn’t newsworthy in those days, but it was very much a fact of life just the same.

I became a teacher and remained one for a long time. I had occasion to break up the occasional fight, and I know that at least a few times I was being used as a human shield by some students for whom getting from one classroom to another was a perilous journey. I have no doubt that I witnessed only a fraction of what was going on.

Only in the latter stages of my unexpectedly long career did I have parents approaching me with requests to intervene on behalf of a child who was being bullied, or to protect a child from the physical or psychological attacks of aggressive classmates. Sometimes I was able to help a little, but there were also times when I was of very little help, and on at least one occasion I probably made the situation worse.

As a child and an adolescent, I often wished for magic powers that might allow me to deal with injustices and inequalities. Superman comic books offered thrilling narratives but not a shred of practical information. But just as I long ago stopped dreaming of becoming a superhero, I no longer hold on to the hope that there is any real solution to the problem of bullying.

There is something in Nature that pushes all forms of life to exploit the individual who is smaller or weaker or in some way different.

My father was a hobby farmer. One spring, in addition to ordering 100 newborn chicks, he also ordered 10 newly hatched turkeys. One of these turned out to be a runt. When we noticed that the other birds were pecking at the runt’s head, we removed him and put him in his own small enclosure.

He showed no signs of being happy on his own, ignoring his food to search for a break in the netting to rejoin the others. Eventually, we put him back, only to see the others almost immediately commence pecking at his head again.

With each blow, he would dip his head, but never would he try to flee or fight back.

We removed him several times, but in the end left him with the others. One morning we found him dead in the sawdust, his cranium cracked open.

In the course of writing about bullying, I found that I was no more successful than the creators of Superman in coming up with a blueprint for dealing with bullies.

There is no simple, universal solution. Fighting back can be as dangerous as running away.

The majority of the stories I have heard about bullying have led me to believe that, with luck, most of us will outgrow our bullies. If the stories have a moral, it might be: survive today to thrive tomorrow.

Nick Fonda of Richmond taught high school and elementary school in the Eastern Townships for more than a quarter of a century. He is also a journalist and author, most recently of Principals and Other Schoolyard Bullies, a book of short stories published by Baraka Books.

Montreal Gazette – Sadly, bullying is a fact of life – but most of us will survive and thrive