USF study finds cyber bullying rampant in South Korea

Americans aren't the only ones with bullying problems, says a University of South Florida student researcher.

Bullying "is taken to a whole new level" in Asia, particularly the use of the Internet to harass and torment people, said Tahseen Ismail, who presented her research today at the USF Undergraduate Research Symposium.

It's so bad in South Korea that college students favor government regulations to require Internet users to provide their real names, Ismail said.

She focused on South Korea for her study because it's one of the most wired countries in the world. But the problem is rising in China and India as their access to the Internet spreads, she said.

With the help of Chosun Kim, an adjunct faculty member in the USF Honors College, Ismail surveyed 272 students at four South Korean universities.

Almost three-fourths of the student respondents knew a victim of cyber bullying and more than half knew a cyber bully. The students said that more than half of the cyber bullies they knew were in elementary and middle school.

Adults weren't innocent, the university students said. They believed that more than 10 percent of cyber bullies were adults.

Ismail said adults were responsible for some of the worst cyber bullying in South Korea.

In one case, South Koreans used the Internet to attack a Korean-American man recruited in South Korea to be a pop idol. More than 3,000 signed an Internet petition calling for him to commit suicide after learning he had ridiculed South Korea on My Space.

Why is cyber bullying so intense in South Korea?

Ismail said she believes it's because South Koreans live in a highly competitive society but are expected to be extremely polite in person.

"They get behind a computer and just let it all out," she said.

The Koreans recognize the problem. South Korean law requires that Web sites with more than 100,000 visitors a day verify users' identities through a so-called "real name system." And more than half of the students Ismail surveyed said they agreed with the law, though they also said it didn't work.

A substantial number of students, 31 percent, didn't agree with the law. The rest didn't give their opinion.

Ismail said much more research needs to be done to determine the actual occurrence of cyber bullying in South Korea, but she believes it's important to keep watching that country and its efforts to curb the problem.

She said cyber bullying is likely to get worse worldwide as Internet use increases, particularly among younger students.

If the South Koreans can find ways to deal with the problem, "that would give us a model for the future."