School access to social network sites ‘could reduce cyberbullying’

ACCESS to websites like YouTube and Facebook in second-level schools could help teachers reduce the degree to which teenagers use technology as a bullying weapon, an expert claims.

Most of the country’s second-level schools are restricted from using video or social networking sites because of fears that they are used for cyberbullying. The blocks are set up by software from the National Council for Technology in Education (NCTE), with differing restriction levels depending on the age of pupils.

One of the most common types of cyberbullying is the use by young people of mobile phones to make videos of other students and then putting them up on websites like YouTube.