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By Hope Tinney and Maria Ortega, WSU News Service, 509/335-7209, mortega@ws.edu, WSU Today

Contact: Nicole E. Werner, WSU Department of Human Development, 509/335-8659, nwerner@wsu.edu

Children’s Internet Use and Cyber Bullying

PULLMAN, Wash.--Children left to navigate cyberspace on their own with few or no parental rules seem to exhibit more anxiety, more depression and less pro-social behavior, according to a study by Washington State University researchers.

"Maternal Rule-Setting for Children's Internet Use" will be published this spring in the journal Marriage and Family Review.

Nicole Werner and Matthew Bumpus, authors of the paper and colleagues in the Department of Human Development, also found in a different study that nearly 20 percent of middle school-age children have either been the victim of or a participant in some type of Internet aggression. Both studies drew on data from a longitudinal study of family relationships and children's social adjustment.

Werner and Bumpus are analyzing responses from more than 300 sixth- and seventh-grade Pullman students' surveys and interviews, looking specifically at the data involving computer-mediated communication.

Bumpus said that it is clear from the evidence that unsupervised use of text messaging, e-mails, chat rooms, instant messaging and other forms of computer-mediated communication are risky, although there is no conclusion that it is the unsupervised Internet use that is causing those problems.

In "Maternal Rule-Setting for Children's Internet Use," Bumpus and Werner concluded that the most effective method of monitoring Internet use was to create rules that were technology-specific, such as the use of filtering software, restricting e-mail use to a "safe" list or prohibiting instant messaging.

According to the study, the children whose parents employed few or no rules regarding Internet use reported lower rates of prosocial behavior and higher rates of anxiety and depression.

Werner and Bumpus' study regarding cyber bullies, which has not been published yet, shows that Internet aggression varies depending on the amount of time students spend using computer-mediated communication devices such as text messaging, instant messaging or e-mail. The more time kids spent communicating via a computer, the more likely they were to be a participant in or a victim of Internet aggression.

Gender does not seem to matter. In their study, boys and girls reported being involved in Internet aggression in about the same numbers. And the rate did not vary by grade level. Students did report increasing involvement over the course of one year, suggesting that early adolescence is a time of significant growth in Internet aggression.

The Internet aggressor seems to be the same kid that also bullies peers in traditional contexts, such as school. This research also showed that students who were themselves victims of Internet aggression were more likely to become online aggressors.

Internet aggression, Werner said, seems to be most closely connected to relational aggression in traditional peer contexts. For instance, adolescents who use exclusion, or threats of exclusion, to manipulate a relationship are more likely to engage in aggressive behaviors online.

"The raw material for relational aggression appears to be heightened with online tools such as instant messaging and social networking sites," said Werner. Users can manipulate text as well as photos, and then distribute that information to a number of other people behind a shield of partial or complete anonymity.

While Internet aggression appears to affect a minority of students, researchers are still working to determine its effects on the kids who experience it. Nonetheless, Werner said, "I firmly believe that parents need to closely monitor children's use of online communication tools during the elementary school years."

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