Hundreds of incidents of cyberbullying in Scottish schools have been reported over the past three years, it emerged yesterday.
Figures released by the Scottish Conservatives showed 524 incidents involving e-mail, text messaging, computers and social networking were recorded by 16 local authorities.
But the party says it believes this is just the tip of the iceberg as only half of Scotland’s councils responded to a freedom-of-information request and the respondents did not include Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Aberdeen City Council said 62 cases were reported from 2011-13 and there was one case in the Highland Council area this year.
Aberdeenshire Council recorded 21 incidents – which could involve more than one pupil – of exclusion from schools between 2010 and 2013 for offences including malicious communications.
Incidents include children as young as eight verbally abusing each other on social media and youngsters exchanging insults over Xbox games consoles.
Some incidents were reported of children filming bullying, then threatening to share the images online.
In some cases, teachers were involved in training to deal with online bullying, while parents were summoned to meetings in school to resolve the problem.
North East Labour MSP Lewis Macdonald said he had no doubt that cyberbullying went on in primary schools as well as secondary schools.
He added that while bullying was an age-old problem, the advent of social media made the situation far worse for youngsters.
Mr Macdonald said: “Bullying does not just take the form of being punched, slapped or kicked. It is also being frozen out by your friends.
“Social media means bullying is not confined to gossip among your friends – it can go a lot wider than that.
“Parents have to take responsibility and challenge their children on what they are doing to make clear what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.”
Tory leader Ruth Davidson said: “The picture painted here is extremely worrying, which is why we need local authorities to do more to collect and publish this information.
“The lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of children’s lives are being made a misery as a result of cyberbullying.”
A spokesman for Aberdeen City Council said it had a zero-tolerance approach to bullying of any kind.
“We provide continuing professional development for staff about all bullying issues and methods of dealing with all incidents of bullying,” he said.
“Education officers are on hand to provide advice and support to schools.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said bullying was unacceptable in any form but there were particular challenges in dealing with online abuse.
She added that ministers hosted talks to examine the issue and advice was published this week for parents thinking about buying smartphones, tablets and computers for children.
The spokeswoman said: “All pupils receive classes that look at appropriate online behaviour and the help available to report abuse, alongside learning to encourage robust and responsible internet users.”
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