Cornell Students Must Speak Out Against Hazing
February 4, 2013Why We Are Not Doing Enough About Bullying
February 6, 2013Story shared from University News.
When one thinks of bullying, one may imagine a defenseless kid rushing to his bike after school to avoid a group of tough tyrants. Rarely is bullying thought of in a university environment.
In November 2012, the International Bullying Prevention Association sponsored a conference in Kansas City, with a session specifically about bullying on college campuses.
Former board member for the UMKC Women’s Center, Trish Madsen, M.S., is now a community educator who has specialized in bullying prevention for 14 years, speaking to more than 80,000 students, parents and teachers.
Some college-age bullying happens through hazing in fraternities and sororities, but much occurs online via social media.
“My theory is ‘the more you play, the more you pay,’ which I think helps [students] connect usage with risks,” she said. “Everything they put out there—online or through their phones—is public and permanent. Forgetting this can have long-term consequences.”
Madsen also worries that obtaining social abilities online “can take away the skills—eye contact, posture, small talk, assertive voice—they need to interact with each other socially later in life—job interviews, jobs themselves, interacting in public—but it also creates a social awkwardness that some ‘remedy’ through drinking when they are faced with social events during college.”
UMKC sophomore business administration major Chris Hailey agrees that communication skills suffer as a result of too much time online.
“It seems that individuals now have deviated from physical conversations with other people and become more content with carrying out their interactions through electronic devices,” he said. “And with easy access to social media at any time and nearly any device, cyber-bullying and social stalking have definitely surpassed being carried out from a home computer.”
Michelle Foster, UMKC Urban Education Research Center Executive Director, thinks that cyber-bullying allows students to avoid consequences. Bullies do not always physically see their victim’s pain when they post harsh comments or aggressive material online.
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