Online abuse28
Study exposes cyberbullying
According to assic. Prof .dr. Wimontip musikaphan, deputy director at the national lnstitute for child and family development at mahidol university , there was a case where a gay japanese student committed suicide because his sexual identity and led to more research about how to deal with the problem of cyberbullying in japan.
In thailand , cyberbullying isn't as widely recognised as a serious problem , however it is an issue that many young thais have to deal with.
" an autistic thai student was teased so much by his friends on the school intranet that he locked himself in his room for almost a month and stopped going to school, " wimontip said." Some issues are very sensitive for adolescents because they need social acceptance among their peers. "
Bad behaviour
Wimontip explained that cyberbullying is generally referred to as young people who use the lnternet to continually attack or defame their victims.
"There are many types of cyberbullying ,"wimontip said ." It can range from harassing a victim with vulgar language or creating fake naked photos of somebody to ganging up on somebody or humiliating them by posting false information online,"
Research results
With research funding pronvided by the japanese government, wimontip conducted a study in 2009 by collecting information from 2,500 peole throughout the country aged from 12 to 24 .the samples were divided into 1,400 girls and 1,600 boys who studied in both government and private schools.
The results showed that most of the participants didn't know what cyberbullying really meant. Once it was explaned to them,many participants said that it was unacceptable and should be prohibited. However ,40 percent of voxational school students believed that bullying was funny , while 32.8 percent of high school students said that bullying online was normal begaviour.