Remote bullying

Cyberbullying -- yet another unintended consequence of the Internet that today's youth will grow up with. The New York Times sets the context:

... the technology lubricating the social lives of teenagers is amplifying standard adolescent cruelty. No longer confined to school grounds or daytime hours, "cyberbullies" are pursuing their quarries into their own bedrooms. Tools like e-mail messages and Web logs enable the harassment to be both less obvious to adults and more publicly humiliating, as gossip, put-downs and embarrassing pictures are circulated among a wide audience of peers with a few clicks.

The technology, which allows its users to inflict pain without being forced to see its effect, also seems to incite a deeper level of meanness. Psychologists say the distance between bully and victim on the Internet is leading to an unprecedented - and often unintentional - degree of brutality, especially when combined with a typical adolescent's lack of impulse control and underdeveloped empathy skills.

An unpleasant thought: Will today's teens and tweens eventually learn to accept cyberstalking as an inevitable price to pay for being online, much like how many Gen-Xers seem to shrug off spam?

(Note: Bad hyperlink fixed. Sorry for the inconvenience.)