In the second of a two-part series on children and the internet, forensic psychologist Dr Maureen Griffin speaks to Nicola Corless about cyber bullying, sexting, mobile phone safety and online gaming

 

IRELAND had nearly 4.8 million mobile phone subscriptions by July this year, according to ComReg, the Commission for Communications Regulation. That translates to just less than 1.05 per head of population.
So as more and more children are given their own mobile phones, what are they doing with them?
“It is the common gift now for communions, if not before it,” asserts Ennis woman Dr Maureen Griffin, who speaks to primary and secondary students about issues such as social networking, cyber-bullying, mobile phone safety, sexting, online gaming, chatting online and safe searching.
In May of this year, a World Health Organisation (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) report recommended that mobile phones be categorised as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” but as Dr Griffin points out, there are other dangers to children from having mobile-phone technology so close at hand.
“There are a number of different definitions of sexting. Some definitions of sexting include racy text messages that students send but the definition we tend to use in Ireland, for the more serious cases of it, is where there is somebody under 18, so still a child, who sends a nude or semi-nude photo of themselves to other people with their mobile phone,” explains Dr Griffin.
“I know other definitions include sending these messages online or through emails, but my experience in Irish schools is that they are sent through mobile phones and it is an issue,” she continues.
More than three billion text messages were sent from the beginning of April to the end of June this year in Ireland, according to ComReg. More than 10 million multi-media messages were sent during the same period.
“Sexting is extremely common. It depends, I suppose, on who your cohort of friends is, but the media, everything feeds into this. Some of the stats from research in Ireland suggest one in four girls will send messages like this. It is not everybody. Again, it goes back to your friends and what they are doing,” Dr Griffin notes.

Celebrity
Over the past few years, the ‘sexting’ phenomenon has repeatedly hit the headlines. According to the preliminary findings of a University of Melbourne study released at the 2011 Australasian Sexual Health Conference in Canberra last month, young people believe  a highly sexualised media culture bombarded young people with sexualised images and created pressure to engage in sexting.
Family Fortunes presenter Vernon Kay, English footballer Ashley Cole and singer Rihanna, have all been accused of sending raunchy text messages.
“The impact of the media is huge. I have talked to students that send these messages, they have said to me ‘what is the big deal? All the stars have their own sex tapes’. So they feel like celebrities in their own right. They don’t see the consequences. They all think it will remain private. They don’t see that this could be forwarded onto somebody else. It could be forwarded on again and often is used as a revenge strategy. When you are a teenager you could be in love with somebody this week, and two weeks later you are no longer in love and the message is forwarded on to somebody else,” Dr Griffin states.
“It is shocking. Some of these images are extremely graphic as well. They are pornographic images and it is a child. So it has to be investigated. The huge danger with this is that, say a girl in third year forwards on a message to a Leaving Cert and they are over 18 so, as an adult, they can be charged with possession of child pornography. In all reality in Ireland, nobody wants to do that. In the UK though, hundreds of kids have been charged as sex offenders. They have been charged with possession of child pornography and are registered as sex offenders for being involved in sex texting. In Ireland they don’t want to do that, so it is a case of being cautioned by a juvenile liaison officer,” explains Dr Griffin.
But criminal charges are only one of the potential consequences of sexting. “The other side effect to this is that a child who sends a message like this never knows where that picture has gone, who has it and it does increase their risk of victimisation in schools.  An awful lot of kids are bullied because they have done this and there are a huge amount of mental health issues, anxiety, depression over it and, in the worst cases, suicide,” Dr Griffin outlines.

Who is sexting?
When a quarter of Irish girls send a sexually-explicit image of themselves, they may feel the photo will be viewed only by the intended party; frequently that is not the case.
“Even when you have complete faith in the other person, there is no guarantee the message won’t be seen by others. Their phone could be stolen. I get kids to think about whether or not they ever accidentally sent a message to the wrong number. That can happen anybody but the majority of our messages are very benign like ‘pick up milk at the shop’ as opposed to a graphic picture and that is a huge danger as well,” she continues.
Dr Griffin’s experience listening to teenagers is that sexting is most prevalent in girls aged 15 and 16.
“It seems that sexting is most common with third year students, third year girls really but it is such a difficult area to investigate. You have parents getting involved saying someone put pressure on my daughter to send this message. You have no proof as to whether or not pressure was put on to send the message and nobody wants to be investigating that area,” she outlines.
The age of the girls in question is particularly relevant, Dr Griffin believes as “research that has been done in the UK and US has indicated that this is a crossing-over stage in their development”.
“The main reasons that students give me for sending these kinds of texts are to flirt with somebody, to flirt with somebody that is in an older age group and to get attention. A lot of other girls want to be celebrities in their own right, to be popular and they like people talking about them.
“Some of the girls I talk to say it is pressure. A girl might be going out with a guy who is a year or two older than her, and he wants these pictures and he puts pressure on her to send them,” she continues.
“Sometimes, when a relationship goes sour, they send them on as a form of revenge and to stress as well that guys do this too. Girls are doing it but males are also involved in sending these text messages, just not as much as females,” she adds.

Consequences
Consequences of these types of texts are often ignored. Dr Griffin points out that the impact of an adult male being caught with pornographic images of a minor on his phone or computer is rarely considered.
“I talk kids through the whole issue of consequences – future employment and getting into college. In other countries, if you are 18 and charged with possession of child pornography, say of having a picture on your phone, any work involving kids would be out of the question. Even future travel can be more difficult because of visa restrictions,” she claims.
“I try and encourage kids to consider how they would feel if that message is sent on to someone and in a year or two, it pops up again? It is all about trying to make them aware of the consequences of what they are doing because they don’t see it. I have spoken to girls or boys who say ‘well I trust my girlfriend’ or ‘I trust my boyfriend’ and ‘this is just between us’. They really don’t anticipate the dangers of technology or phones and the danger that you can lose your phone. Even the fact that the image is there, even after you erase it, the image can still be recovered,” Dr Griffin continues.

Advice
For those who have engaged in sexting, all is not lost.
“I would hope anyone who has done it before would think twice about ever sending one of those messages again but you can’t take it back. If you sent it to only one person, you could ask them for their phone or ask them to delete that message,” Dr Griffin advises.
Most important is that young people who find themselves victimised or who cannot delete the images, talk to someone.
“It is crucial to talk to your parents. Sometimes young people won’t want to talk to their parents, or they don’t get on with them, or maybe it is too embarrassing but you might have an older brother or sister, an aunt or uncle you get on with; you might have a neighbour that is a really good friend of yours, tell one of them. Tell somebody about it,” she suggests.

Parents
For many parents hearing their child has been sending inappropriate messages can be traumatic and confusing. Dr Griffin urges to be calm and try to understand, rather than judge, what has happened.
“For parents, the important thing is to understand your child. Yes, you are going to be upset. Yes, you are going to be angry but you have to understand the child’s motivations for sending this message. It might have been romance, it might have been revenge, it might have been their attempt to flirt with somebody; whatever it was, you have to try to understand your child,” she says.
“We are not teaching them how to use modern technology then when they make a mistake, we say it is completely their fault. There can be repercussions to their actions, you can limit  phone or internet use afterwards but make sure your child knows they can come to you with anything, that there is an open line of communication there, so they know they can go to you,” Dr Griffin concludes.

 

 

When the bully’s hand reaches into the home

MORE than one fifth of primary school children and over one quarter of secondary students have, or know someone who has, been bullied online through phone, chat rooms or emails, a recent ISPCC report has shown.
As mobile technology penetrates deeper into our lives, Dr Maureen Griffin notes the mobile phone is becoming an emotional crutch and is allowing the bully’s hand to reach into the home.
“Phones and technology are becoming a central aspect in children’s and young people’s lives. Phones and computers are used to relieve boredom now. This attachment forms when you are young and it is crucial that it doesn’t. I have dealt with primary school kids who go to bed with their phone under their pillow, charging. That is affecting their sleep patterns, their concentration; it is affecting everything. That is a worry for me that technology is becoming so central in children’s lives that they can’t amuse themselves without it and that they use it to relieve boredom,” she observes.
The National Children’s Consultation report Children and the Internet: This will come back and bite us in the butt, published earlier this month, shows that a quarter of girls and 18% of boys surveyed experienced bullying. More than half of these thought the bullying happened every day (54% of girls and 46% of boys), approximately one fifth felt it happened once, with a further 17% of girls and 18% of boys saying the bullying took place every week.
Older young people were also asked to select from a list all the ways that  bullying had occurred. Of the 15,078 young people that responded, most said it had been via social networking sites (14%) or by mobile text messages (8%).
“Cyberbullying is extremely prevalent across Irish schools and any school that tells you otherwise has their head in the sand. They are fooling themselves. The schools I have dealt with so far are fantastic. They recognise that something needs to be done in terms of this. Misuse of Facebook is a huge problem for an awful lot of schools with kids writing inappropriate messages and really harsh messages. They are no longer saying ‘I hate you’ but now there are suggestions of ‘why don’t you go away and kill yourself’. It is quite extreme,” Dr Griffin claims.
The ISPCC figures show that 10% of children aged between 11 and 13 experienced bullying on social networking sites. This increased to 16% of 14 to 16-year-olds and to 18% for those respondents over 17 years of age.
“Cyberbullying is a worry because it can start at a young age. The mean messages can start on social networking sites like Club Penguin or Moshi Monsters before the kids even get onto Bebo or Facebook and through text messages,” Dr Griffin stated.
Cyberbullying is defined as using “electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature”. However, the difficulty arises with different interpretations of bullying.
“Adults might see messages saying ‘I hate you’ as cyberbullying but kids aren’t necessarily viewing this as cyberbullying. That is an important point for parents; to make sure that they can confirm that what they are dealing with is cyberbullying because, at one stage or another, a child is going to get a hurtful message and something mean is going to be said about them on Facebook. Parents need to make sure their child is being targeted and that it is not just a once-off, that it is consistent and is happening over a period of time,” explains Dr Griffin.
Part of the difficulty with cyberbullying, she adds, is that it can be harder to tackle than conventional face-to-face bullying.
“The trouble with this is it is outside the reach of schools. When I was in school, it stopped at 4pm. You got your summer off and there was no bullying but because of information technology, bullying is 24-7. Children are going home from school where there might have been gestures or something physical in school, name-calling or someone knocking the books out of their hands or something like that. They are going home and seeing horrible comments being written about them on Facebook. They are staying and watching this until 11 or 12 o’clock at night, which isn’t right either. A lot of it is through mobile phones so it is 24-7, there is no break from it,” she says.
While the effects of cyberbullying, like all types of bullying, can be devastating, it is its pervasiveness that Dr Griffin finds particularly worrying.
“The effects of cyberbullying differ in terms of the coping strategies kids use to deal with it. Some will avoid school, they don’t want to go there. They could be upset or sad. They are angry at the people who are doing this, they can withdraw from friends.
“Other kids become addicted to it and are still looking at what everyone else is saying about them, hoping that something nice might be said. A lot of kids internalise it. I have dealt with a lot of kids who have said, ‘well that person is right. Look at me, my hair is fuzzy’ or ‘I don’t have the coolest friends’, or ‘I am not popular’ or ‘I am not any good at sport’. They blame themselves for it.
“There can be physical symptoms too. I have spoken to parents whose kids can’t sleep. They don’t want to eat. They have anxiety and are stressed over it. Then there are the more serious cases, where people harm themselves or take their own life over it,” she states.
“We can see the short-term responses but for cyberbullying we really don’t know what the long-term consequences of this are going to be yet. If we look at the effects of bullying in the past, it led to mental health issues for people and to difficulties for them in later life. Because the technology is so new, with things like Facebook and mobile phones, and the way we interact with others is changing, I don’t think we realise the impact cyber bullying is going to have on individuals and we won’t know for a number of years,” Dr Griffin concluded.

 

Warding off advances

ONLINE gaming is just one way young people interact with strangers online. Social networking and, to a lesser extent, boards and chatrooms are also exploited by unscrupulous individuals seeking to prey on young people.
Dr Griffin’s PhD is in Applied Forensic Psychology specialising in Sex Offender Assessment. Her primary research interests are in the area of sexual offenders whose preference is for individuals in the early years of puberty, specifically focusing on the role of the internet in the online solicitation of minors.
“I focussed on predators who were targeting 12, 13, 14 and 15-year-olds; they groom them so that the young people don’t even get into the mindset of thinking they are giving away huge amounts of information. They build up a relationship with them.
“I think it goes back to the vulnerabilities of the child too. For a lot of children who talk to ‘randomers’ (strangers) online, they have some sort of a vulnerability themselves, so they are doing it because they feel down and because this person makes them feel better, or because maybe they don’t get on as well with their parents and don’t know who to talk to. They might not have many friends in school or they might not have activities to do in the afternoon. But at the same time, a predator is involved in an awful lot of grooming activities,” she outlines.
The reactions of children and young people to inappropriate contact vary from case to case.
“I have dealt with some kids who, if an inappropriate question pops up, would tell the person to ‘bugger off’, whereas I have had other individuals who would give the person the answer and see nothing wrong with it.
“The main line when you start chatting to a stranger online is ‘ASL’ (Age Sex Location) and the amount of students that know what this means and would respond back straight away is shocking…They do say they would be reluctant to tell a stranger personal details if they met them in the real world but it comes down to distancing yourself from a situation,” she outlines.
“Online in a chat room ‘ASL’ is literally the first sentence that someone would say to you but you are in that room to chat, so the question is in context. But I have to try to draw parallels for children between what they do online and what they do in the real world. If they wouldn’t be happy telling someone these details in real life then why tell a stranger online. Often it is because it is easier, you are distanced from it,” she continues.
Dr Griffin has found Irish young people’s use of chatrooms differs from the American and British experience. “The main ways children here chat is through Facebook or through Gmail as opposed to entering chatrooms. Some kids will use them of course, but a very small percentage of those I have come across so far. They enter specific chatrooms to talk about specific issues, so it might be to ask questions or find information on health-related problems or sexuality issues,” she explains.
She is keen to reassure children and parents that, while there are predators online, the coverage of this area is disproportionate to the number of incidents of inappropriate contact.
“Everyone has this fear of predators online and I am not trying to remove the seriousness of it, it is an issue and kids do need to be educated on it. What I talk to them about is the kind of questions that are inappropriate because it is important that they know what are red flags, what to do and how to get out of the situation and stop contact, how to remove somebody as a friend on a social network site, how to block them and how to make sure they can’t send you messages again. That is the kind of information that can help keep them safe,” she concludes.

 

Playing a dangerous game

ON September 29, the Plymouth Herald published a court report detailing how a 46-year-old man attacked a teenager who killed his character on a violent online computer game. The story made world news.
The man, named in the report as Mark Bradford of Cardinal Avenue, St Budeaux, went to the boy’s house, “walked into the front room and grabbed him around the throat with both hands”.
The report noted the court was told the boy “was left with a small scratch and some reddening to the neck”.
“Tracey Baker, for Bradford, said he ‘just lost it’ and the attack was not planned. She said that he was provoked by the name-calling and also had mental health issues,” the report stated.
In court this week, he received a 16-week jail sentence, suspended for a year.
The story illustrates how virtual can become reality in an age where, according to the ISPCC, around half of children and young people are spending one to three hours online each day with 12% accessing the internet on a games console.
Dr Griffin notes, “From my experience in schools, online gaming tends to be people on PlayStation or Xbox, playing with other people from different parts of the world. The number one thing that jumps out at me, particularly in relation to primary school children, is the inappropriate material in these games”.
Three out of 10 games in XtraVision’s current ‘PreOwned Most Wanted’ list are rated 18. A further two are over 12 and one over 15. Dr Griffin has spoken to children as young as eight who are playing games that are rated for 18 years or older.
“It is worrying what they are taking from these games in terms of a social learning perspective. Some of the scenarios in Grand Theft Auto for example are shocking and are not appropriate for eight, nine or 10-year-olds,” she states.
As well as the content, Dr Griffin points out many children are spending several hours each night playing computer games. From a parent’s perspective, she believes banning online gaming is not feasible.
“An awful lot of parents say to me ‘will I ban all the games?’ but kids can go to their friends house and play games. So I am not saying ban the games. What I am saying is be involved with your kids when they are playing these games, talk to them about what they are doing,” Dr Griffin advises.
“A lot of these games have a huge amount of violence; there are sexual acts in these games as well so talking to your children about what they are doing and understanding what they are doing and setting limits on it, is where we want to be. We used to set limits on television viewing. Now online gaming is used as another form of babysitting,” she notes.
“The other thing is that they are talking to individuals that they don’t know. The majority of the online gamers I have spoken to are male and the majority of these are only talking about the game, regarding getting cheats for the game and so on,” she adds.
However, Dr Griffin has encountered some cases where the online banter descends into the inappropriate.
“I have dealt with cases where young people are asked inappropriate questions about their development from older men that they are playing with online. So it is another avenue where someone can get a lot of personal information out of you without you actually realising that you are even giving it away,” she outlines.
Dr Griffin believes the more widespread threat is children’s exposure to adult content in games. “There are so many children using  games that are tailored to adults.”