Instant Messaging services: a perfect medium to cyber-bullying?

Abstract

Instant Messaging Services (IMS) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers connected over a network such as the Internet (Wikipedia, 2007). These wonderful gadgets are a blessing to those who seeks pleasure in communicating over the Net since it offers loads of fascinating features. Instant messaging allows instantaneous communication between numbers of parties simultaneously, by transmitting information quickly and efficiently, featuring immediate receipt of acknowledgment or reply. Instant messaging services may also provide videophoning, file sharing, PC-to-PC voice calling and PC-to-regular-phone calling. Instant messaging has promoted IP telephony because the IM software makes it easy to switch from "text chat" to "voice chat," providing the user has a headset or microphone and speakers (Answers.com, 2007). However, in recent times some chatters used IMS to upset other chatters to some extent driven victims to the brink of suicide and this is called cyber-bullying. There are two kinds of cyber-bullying, direct attacks and cyber-bullying by proxy (Stopcyberbullying.org, 2007). The intention of this paper is to look at Instant Messaging Services and it’s correlation to cyber-bullying, and how to cope with this new method of communicating that can end up with appalling consequences.