Don’t let the Kiwi love-fest at the Oscars fool you: New Zealand’s got problems, too. According to a Victoria University study of text messaging by teens, mean-spirited boys and girls are using the technology to harass their meeker peers. One tactic is known as “flooding,” whereby bullies inundate a poor sap’s inbox with nasty insults. Text messaging, says an article on Stuff.co.nz, “has been implicated in several teen suicides,” including that of a disfigured boy last year. Victims have been afraid to report the cyber-bullying, however, lest their parents simply take away their cell phones. Gizmodo took its lumps in the schoolyard, so don’t think we don’t sympathize. But personally, I’d much rather deal with text-message insults than get Purple Nurpled by a kid named Chunk.
