ONE unfortunate fact of life in the internet age is this: Never has the "picking on" been so easy.

Paige Walters, a 14-year-old, was walloped a while back.

The target: A picture of herself that she had posted on the social networking site, MySpace.com.

The perpetrator was "a friend of a friend that I kind of know," she said.

"He was completely rude about the picture."

So rude, in fact, that Paige, from Blue Springs, Missouri, took the picture off the site.

But it doesn't stop with rudeness.

Homeschooled Sydney Steehn, 13, heard about a nasty internet exchange that came home to roost last spring at Raytown South Middle School.

One girl discovered another was using the blog site Xanga.com to spread a rumour about her. Soon, the two had a fistfight.

Bullying among children and teens has a long history, but technology has made brutality – particularly the emotional kind – much easier to inflict.

Through e-mail, blogs, internet bulletin boards and instant messaging, cyber-bullies can visit their wrath instantly and, often, anonymously on unsuspecting targets who live down the road or across the country.

Last year, when researchers Justin Patchin and Sameer Hinduja conducted an internet survey of about 1400 young people, 34 per cent of the respondents reported having been bullied online.

Patchin, an assistant professor of criminology at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, said: "The accepted norm is that maybe 10 to 15 per cent of kids are bullied in real life."

About 40 per cent of the teens surveyed said they had been "disrespected", 13 per cent said they felt threatened by their online exchange and 5 per cent said they feared for their safety.

Among the researchers' other findings: Abuse was reported most often in chat rooms, where 56 per cent of the respondents said they had experienced it.

The second-most frequent venue was through text messages, with 49 per cent.

Seventeen per cent of those surveyed admitted bullying other people online.

The internet is an inviting forum for those inclined to hurl invective. For one thing, it often is possible to remain anonymous.

In a study earlier this year by the Opinion Research Corporation, 28 per cent of the adolescent respondents who said they had been bullied online also said they did not know the perpetrator.

As a tool for torment, the internet tends to level the playing field, Patchin said.

"You have this perception of a schoolyard bully as being physically aggressive, or more socially competent," he said.

Sitting at a keyboard, Patchin said, "You have all the time in the world to make an argument. And you can do it in the privacy of your own bedroom."

The opportunities for cyber-bullying seem to have brought more girls into the bullying class. While it's thought that traditional bullying is the province of boys, research indicates girls and boys alike engage in cyber-abuse.

Girls torment one another by attacking their relationships – and the internet works just fine for that, Patchin pointed out.

Regardless of the bully's gender, abuse seems endemic to certain popular websites, said Paige Walters's mother, Nancy. She noticed her daughter often was upset after visiting MySpace.com and similar sites.

After Paige Walters and her picture were lacerated, she had a talk with her parents.

"It seems they're all that way," Nancy Walters said of MySpace.com and similar sites.

Preferring to let her daughter make her own decisions, Nancy Walters did not prohibit Paige from subjecting herself to more abuse.

"I don't think she gets on there too much any more," she said. "They're just mean."

Patchin and Hinduja also asked respondents whom they told about the abuse that came their way.

It seems children only sometimes tell their friends and they rarely share their experiences with teachers or parents.

And for an interesting reason, said Patchin, "They were afraid their parents would just unplug the computer."

Glenn Berry, director of the Missouri Centre for Safe Schools, trains school staffs in cyber-bullying. Schools have grounds to intervene when bullying is done on school property, he said. But most of it probably is done from home.

Berry advises schools and those being abused online to save, but not open, messages that seem likely to be abusive and contact police or the service provider.

Schools are hearing about the problem, Berry said.

"At one conference I was at recently, probably 60 per cent of educators had dealt with cyber-bullying. It's becoming more and more prevalent at schools."

Berry said in one case students "had stolen a student's identity and created a website" and loaded it with insulting comments about other people.

Paige Walters finds "a lot of kids are just plain rude on the net. People think they have the right to do that because they're not in front of your face. I've noticed when I'm on MySpace, they have this not-friendly slang . . . It's negative compared to when you're talking to them in person."

Walters said the problem is only exacerbated because the telephone no longer is teens' communication tool of choice. "People would rather IM (instant-message) than pick up the phone. When you're IM'ing, you can talk to five people at once. We're all into multitasking and in a hurry."

Play it safe

If someone bullies you online, you should:

•  Keep your cool. Don't escalate things with a rash response
•  Keep the messages, even if you prefer not to read them
•  Contact your internet service provider and police about threatening or abusive content

Some general internet tips that also apply:

•  Never give away identifying information
•  Don't believe everything you see or read online
•  Be cautious about opening messages from unknown people

Sources:
Cyber bullying.ca
BullyOnline.org