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Online bullying of children through free smartphone apps such as Line is increasing in Japan. What can be done to eradicate such anti-social behavior?

16 Comments

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Good parenting. Teach your children that bullying is wrong and they must not do it. If they are being bullied they must tell their parents who should contact the parents of the bullying child at once. If a Mother get's three calls in a week telling her that her little darling is a bully it will stop.

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Teach your children that bullying is wrong

Most children that bully have been abused themselves and in many cases they learned that behaviour in the home or school. How can the parents or teachers tell the kids that bullying is wrong when the parents or teachers are the bullies? The answer is for the adults to stop bullying not to just tell the kids to stop bullying. Unfortunately we have created social systems where bullying is absolutely necessary in many cases in order to succeed. It is tacitly encouraged from one side of the mouth and condemned from the other side. We continue to look at the symptoms of the problems rather than the root causes.

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Easy. Cellphones are for adults. No reason for a kid to have a cellphone. PSP or DS I understand, not a cellphone.

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Wrong Question.

Anti social behavior has been around since the agricultural revolution 10K years ago.

The better question is how do we DEAL WITH the ever present anti social behavior that will ALWAYS be in society?

Just like SimonB said, better parenting.

But since Japanese parents are trained to deliver their children to the "school system" from kindy through uni, and pretty much wash their hands of them in the interim, this ain't gonna happen any time soon.

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How about make sure there not using those apps.

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First of all bullying is absolutely pervasive through out ALL of J-society, top to bottom.

Until society can admit to itself bullying is wrong nothing but a bit of window dressing will occur

That simple!

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What can be done? Like others said, realize the real source of the problem is that parents raise kids to be bullies. Technology if anything has made it so we can have documented proof of what was once just verbal. Stop trying to blame the apps, line did not make bullies.

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syzyguyOct. 06, 2013 - 01:49PM JST online bullying is not bullying. there's a block feature for a reason. if you don't know how to use it you deserve everything that's coming to you.

2 things:

With kids online bullying is normally just an extension of in-person bullying. You can't "block" someone out of your school, and

Because this bullying is an extension of their everyday social circles they CARE what is being said about them. If its an anonymous online community then "block" is a fine reaction. But when it is an extension of your everyday social circle then blocking simply isn't the answer.

The answer is pretty simple, ban. Sites must be responsible for the content they host. They must take steps to investigate and ban any user that acts in a bullying fashion. Punish the bully, deny them access to this type of bullying, don't punish the victim or put the responsibility on them to use a "block" function.

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The "off button.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Take away the phone?

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Don't give out your phone number so these bullies can't find you on LINE. Or block them.

Worst case scenario, get rid of the internet features and use the phone as just a cellphone.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

This is more than just sending messages. Smart phones are internet devices, so abusers can spread hate across the whole of cyberspace... spread lies and rumours about a person. This isn't purely one-to-one bullying. Hitting the 'off' switch doesn't stop the bullies from spreading their poison.

It's also not just restricted to Japan - online bullying goes on across the planet. Kids take their own lives the world over thanks to cyberbullies.

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Nothing. Bullying is happening, it is going to happen, it always has happened. It is best handled by good parenting and open communication with your children, as well as responsible supervision by teachers and others, but it'll never go away. However, the media's response to bullying is way overblown. I'm worried that people are making such a guffaw over it that it's eventually going to lead us to throw away pieces of our freedom of speech in order to stop the bullying.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Don't give out your phone number

Often bullies begin as friends

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Teach kids to ignore it.

I've never understood how you can bully someone by sending them a rude message. Bullying is a real physical threat or psychological / verbal abuse in the first person. Just like spam, people should delete it and not let it worry them

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