By Paul Grossinger
Bullying is a danger half of all children experience every day.
According to a study by the Prague Monitor, half of all school-aged kids will experience cyberbullying in at least one of its many forms during their formative years.
So at least half a billion children around the world experience bullying through their computer, mobile device, and smartphone.
The rising issue of mobile cyberbullying is becoming a huge issue here in the US as well. 90% of US kids either see or experience cyberbullying according to ThinkProgress.org, which adds up to nearly 2.1 million bullies and 2.7 million of their victims in American schools.
What can be done to stop this rising tide in its tracks? Clearly, the first step is for parents and educators to increase their knowledge of how teens bully their peers. Then, parents have to put that knowledge to use by implementing solutions to protect kids and teens.
Encouragingly, parents, educators, and technologists are all taking action to attack the rise in cyberbullying. Parents of teens who have committed suicide are travelling across the country and encouraging kids to stop cyberbullying their peers. Educators and filmmakers like K.R. Shields are working together to promote anti-bullying films like Love is All You Need, which shows kids the real consequences of bullying.
And technologists like ourselves at Pervasive Group are working on MMGuardian to help combine the knowledge parents need with the technology tools to actually solve the bullying problem. MMGuardian’s Monitor, Call Block, and App Block features now work symbiotically to prevent cyberbullying: Monitor allows parents to flag words and phrases of concern in text messages, Call Block enables parents to shut off certain bullying contacts’ access to their kids, and app blocker enables parents to shut off bullying via third-party apps like Oovoo and Facebook Messenger.
