Harrasment through technology

Today at The TNS Group, employees were required to attend the sexual harassment seminar. We discussed the various forms of sexual harassment and harmful situations that can take place in the office. However, we did not touch upon cyber bullying and harassment through text messaging (the newest ways of harassment that has hit the workplace, and primarily school systems.)

In the business world, we use social networking sites to advance our businesses and spread word about what we are promoting. However, teens are using these sites such as Facebook and MySpace, in addition to their cell phones, to bully and harm peers.

The latest incident occurred this past weekend at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, NJ. A girl received a dozen shocking, sexually explicit threats sent from a cell phone, which belonged to a fellow male classmate at Benjamin Franklin Middle School.

Advancements in technology are supposed to improve our lives by simplifying the use of computers and gadgets; not to make it easier to harm others. According to the Technology section in The New York Times, “Schools these days are confronted with complex questions on whether and how to deal with cyberbullying, an imprecise label for online activities ranging from barrages of teasing texts to sexually harassing group sites. The extent of the phenomenon is hard to quantify. But one 2010 study by the Cyberbullying Research Center, an organization founded by two criminologists who defined bullying as "willful and repeated harm” inflicted through phones and computers, said one in five middle-school students had been affected.”

To decrease the amount of harassment between students, the Principal of Benjamin Franklin Middle School sent out an email to parents advising, “There is absolutely NO reason for any middle school student to be part of a social networking site,” he wrote. If children were attacked through sites or texting, he added, “IMMEDIATELY GO TO THE POLICE!”

Although this was not the advice parents wanted to hear, the Principal is right. Harassment, bullying and sexual harassment, are all illegal no matter where they take place. Issues should be immediately addressed before it worsens or someone gets hurt.

 

Tara McKenna