Nearly one in three South Korean teenagers has experienced cyber bullying on the Internet, online games, text messages, emails or other digital technology, a poll showed Monday.
The survey on 4,000 middle and high school students nationwide showed 27.7 percent of the respondents confessed to having been bullied in cyberspace over the past three months.
Divulging personal information online was the most common type of cyber bullying at 12.1 percent, followed by bullying through online games at 10.2 percent. Refusing to accept friend requests or excluding someone from a chat room on the popular mobile messenger Kakao Talk was the third most common at 7.5 percent.
More than 36 percent of the bullying happened because the bully “either disliked or hated the victim,” while 20.5 percent took place “for no particular reason.” Some 8.2 percent occurred because “it was fun” for the bullies.
More than half, or 52.2 percent, of the respondents said they simply watched the situation unfold when they encountered other people being bullied online, while less than 3 percent told their teachers. Only 2.2 percent reported the case to the police, according to the findings.
The survey, conducted between May and June, was reported at a forum on cyber bullying in school and its solutions, which was held at the National Assembly building and hosted by Rep. Yun Jae-ok of the ruling Saenuri Party.
The forum also introduced the latest methods of cyber bullying, including sending large amounts of hate-filled messages to victims, pestering victims by continuing to invite them to chat rooms even after they have left and inviting victims to a chat room and leaving en masse.
Rep. Yun said the government has failed to keep up with different types of bullying at schools.
“We need to come up with practical solutions that will prevent and eradicate cyber bullying, which harms teenagers’ physical and emotional well-being,” he said. (Yonhap)
