With more exposure to social media outlets than ever, people, particularly kids, have taken advantage of an evolved form of bullying – cyberbullying. Cyberbullying isn’t your parents’ brand of face-to-face bullying that they may have experienced in their youth. Cyberbullying is just as malicious and encompasses everything from students picking on each other via social media to strangers across the globe hiding behind a keyboard while typing words of harassment. Although technology may have helped to spawn the alarming trend of cyberbullying, technology also poses a possible remedy. A number of apps and other forms of technology are available to help teachers, students and parents prevent it.
Here are four apps and/ or software programs designed to help combat cyberbullying.
Trend Micro Online Guardian: Trend Micro Online Guardian was founded by a mom who witnessed her daughter being cyberbullied and took great strides to correct matters. Online Guardian contains extensive computer controls for tracking popular social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. This software also offers instant messaging management and malware protection.
YouDiligence: Parents can’t always be there firsthand to stop cyberbullying, but that doesn’t mean they can’t track instances of cyberbullying to help prevent future occurrences. YouDiligence allows parents to monitor their child’s social networking pages while specifically tracking keywords related to bullying, racial slurs, alcohol, profanity and more. With a list of more than 500 “alert” words and phrases that parents can edit based on their specifications, YouDiligence can email alerts to parents when any questionable activity occurs. These updates can then be emailed to parents and viewed via the online dashboard for easy tracking. Avira Social Network Protection
Avira Social Network Protection is another software program that was created as a result of a parent witnessing their child experience cyberbullying. Avira Social Network Protection, previously known as SocialShield, differentiates itself from other anti-cyberbullying programs by monitoring social networking sites to not only protect against bullying, but preserve a child’s reputation. It uses cloud-based software, making it accessible virtually anywhere via a computer or phone. Safety is recorded on a scale ranging from 1-10, with 1 being regarded as the most dangerous and 10 being safe and secure. It determines which posts, videos, threads and friends are deemed appropriate or run the risk of harming a child’s reputation.
STOPit: Currently, only one out of ten cyberbullying victims inform an adult about their situation. With the STOPit app, developers and parents are trying to offer children a greater degree of freedom and empowerment by giving them the tools to attempt to halt cyberbullying themselves. STOPit allows children to take screenshots of malicious online behavior and send it to a customized selection of adults, such as teachers and parents. In the instance of older online predators, children who report problems remain anonymous, and the app offers local law enforcement alerts and easy access to 24/7 help lines.
With social networking sites constantly changing, updating and evolving, the Internet can seem like a playground for cyberbullies. However, with apps and software such as those mentioned above, helpful and preventative measures to combat cyberbullying are being developed – if not already here.
This article was provided by Drexel University Online, which specializes in innovative, Internet-based education programs for working professionals, organizations and corporations in the United States and abroad. For teachers and education professionals looking to advance their careers, Drexel offers a wide variety of accredited master’s degree programs online.
http://www.drexel.com/online-
