Family & Relationships

Cyber Bullying through Texting – An Insight to Causes & Precautions

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Over the past few years, cyber bullying through texting has seen an attention catching increase. This is also one of the reasons that it is more difficult to stop the bullying cases now. Earlier kids would show reluctance in attending school or stay home to avoid the bullies troubling them, but with digitalization and technical advancement bullying has taken a completely different shape. It is now more tech-dependent and this tech-dependency has made the things more difficult.
Below are the top 3 reasons of the text bullying taking such a widely damaging shape –
Almost every kid has a cell phone
About a decade back kids hardly owned any cell phones and texting wasn’t as popular as it is today. So, no bully ever thought of texting in order to abuse their victims. Moreover, way back then texting was costlier than it is today. But, today it is completely different. Almost every kid owns a cell phone and texting is such a breeze that even a second grader would do it provided you allow access to the phone to the kid!
If you sit down and think from a bully’s perspective you’ll find a simple logic that there are lesser chances of a victim getting online at a certain time when the bully is all set to throw the harassment to the person. But sending a text won’t need any kind of wait-game or other struggle. And since every next kid has a cell phone, abusing the victim through text messages won’t be a big deal. The only effort that it will need is to get hold of the phone number.
Texting is simpler and cheaper
For sending hate emails or for harassing a victim online on some chat room or social networking site; it will be essential for the bully to have proper access to Internet and this is not the only condition to fulfill. The victim will also need to have access to Internet or be online on all the sites or chat rooms to which the bully has access. But sending a hate message through cell phone hardly needs any efforts, one can send it anytime anywhere. Even if the victim is on leave from school or has gone out of the town, bully can continue with the abuse all the time without any break at all.
Internet data may prove a bit costlier but text messaging is available at various cheaper price plans; this encourages the bullies to harass their victims through texting.
It gives better anonymity
Of course, it is easier to create a fake account online to harass somebody, yet anonymity is greater when text messaging is used to harass somebody. There’s no name involved, no common friend on the friend list, and no other clue to let the victim know who exactly is sending those hate messages. And it is always easy to get rid of the SIM card. One can even use multiple numbers for sending text messages.
Can parents do anything to save their kids from text bullying?
Yes, they can. Of course, they can. First thing to do is to educate your child about cyber bullying and how can it be dealt with. Next comes, keeping a close track of your child’s digital device and the best way to do this is to go for cell phone tracking through parental monitoring apps. Once you start tracking your child’s text messages, you have a proper idea of what kind of text messages your child is getting and from whom. This will not just work like a proper evidence against the bully but will also let you dig a little deeper and make out who is the person harassing your child. This works the best because you hardly have to do anything on your own, just a simple installation and rest of the things keep going on and you have almost a 24/7 access to your child’s digital device and of courseproper  safety from all kinds of factors creating trouble in your child’s life.