NACDL

Walking down memory lane to those carefree childhood days, most people remember the classroom bully — that boy or girl who had an inexplicable ability to instill fear in others and cause emotional or physical pain. Most people remember avoiding the bully at school and counting down the minutes and the seconds until the school day ended so that they could escape and go home. Home might have been a safe place in the past. Unfortunately, that may no longer be the case for today’s children.

With the advent of cyberbullying — a phenomenon that takes bullying beyond the classroom setting and into private homes — children are finding it harder to escape the negative effects of bullying. The executive director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, Nancy Willard, defines cyberbullying as “cruel[ty] to others by sending or posting harmful material or engaging in other forms of social aggression using the Internet or other digital technologies,” including, but not limited to, cell