Serene Goh examines the big bad world of the Internet.

WITH its arsenal of free-form cyber weaponry, the Internet has had a Lord Of The Flies effect on the youth of today. 

In this online frontier, the rules of engagement are still being invented by the people who know it best – never mind that they are just children. 

The Straits Times surveyed 100 youths who all said they had been stung one way or another by online venom; this, long before even reaching the legal age for drinking.

In gaming circles, they are subjected to any number of insults, taunts and put-downs, say veteran youth gamers, who in the same breath add that they themselves do some of that bullying. 

Others say that at schools, classroom disagreements are taken outside – and launched into all-out battles in cyberspace. Petty jealousies, grievances and grouses are no longer settled with just playground fistfights, but viciously perpetuated at online blogs, forums and social networking sites.

Yes, it’s hard out there for a kid.

Let loose in a world beyond the protection of their parents, they are exposed to a harsh cruelty which was previously muted by lower-grade technology. 

A generation ago, a poison-pen letter could be linked to its author by its handwriting, and disseminating it called for some financial outlay – there were stamps to think about, envelopes to be purchased, photocopies to be paid for.

Not anymore.

When you arm even a responsible, sane adult with a loaded gun, it is possible to expect grievous hurt. Imagine then, what is happening to young persons, still prone to easy tantrums, who have posionous missiles at the touch of their keyboards? 

William Golding’s allegory of what unleashes the baser aspects of human nature made his book a classic. If his observations are anything to go by, we can expect the worst.

Already, in the United States, cases of suicide have resulted from relentless cyberbullying attacks.

It is not hard to see why.

To hear someone say something nasty about you is one thing – those effects do not linger in speech bubbles, thankfully, as they do in comic books. 

It’s quite something else to read a slur about your looks, your weight, your character, your flaws, writ large and bold, in 24-point font for the world to see. 

Words, aimed at a hypersensitive young psyche, can have a corrosive effect on the spirit.

Already, youth we spoke to revealed a disturbing desperation about cyberbullying.

They fear having their personal information hijacked and turned into something like pornography. Victims feel they can trust no one, without knowing their assailants’ real identities. 

In the worst instances, some even contemplate ending their lives.

Does such inner turmoil deserve a place among youths? Or is it better off as a diary entry of a prisoner of war?

Then again, maybe this is war, and it is time for keepers of young people’s well-being to prepare for combat.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.