Comunicar 39-ingles - Revista Comunicar

135Table 4. Addiction to Internet Experimental Group.the ConRed program would lead to a decrease in certainundesirable forms of adolescent behavior.Among the students who took part directly in theConRed program there was a general decrease ininvolvement in cyberbullying, in the abusive use ofInternet and in the false perception of control overinformation; this latter result suggests a greater awarenessof the students’ own lack of information abouthow to control their own data, their subsequent vulnerabilityand the usefulness of learning and using strategiesto augment their control and keep the personalinformation they upload to Internet private.Table 5 Perceived Control over Information Control Group and Experimental Group.Previous scientific literature contains no consol -idated groundwork regarding the implementation ofac tion programs to combat cyberbullying in schools,although work has been done on traditional schoolbullying and specific programs have been proposed toprevent harassment and violence among schoolchildren.Such programs have produced positive results,demonstrating that sustained, controlled, whole policyaction can improve interpersonal harmony and preventschool violence and bullying. One example is theSAVE project (Seville Anti School Violence), an actionapproach based on scientific evidence (Ortega, 1997;Ortega & Del Rey, 2001). ConRed adopted the sameparameters (working with students, teachers and familiesto improve knowledge and raise awareness abouthow information can be controlled) and producedcomparable results (Ttofi & Farrington, 2009). Webelieve that cyber-harassment is an indirect form oftraditional bullying –i.e., indirect bullying (Smith & al.,2008)– ; and that whole policy preventive models aretherefore still valid. This is fully coherent with theimportance now being attached to the school as theplace where this type of problem can bestbe dealt with (Luengo Latorre, 2011). Theresults of this study support the idea thatwhole policy measures are an effectivemeans of reducing high risk behavior. Wehave shown how by raising risk awarenessand training teachers and parents to guideyoung people’s be havior it is possible toreduce high risk conduct, increase the takingof precautionary measures and induce protective attitudesin online activity, without creating undue alarmamong schoolchildren. From our point of view this isone of the key results because help given to victims,and their awareness that they have someone there tohelp them and advise them, reinforces their confi -dence and dispels the sense of weakness and isolationwhich prevents them from facing up to these kinds ofproblems (Hunter & Boyle, 2004).ConRed itself illustrates the need to curb the potentiallyexcessive use of Internet and to reduce the risk ofaddiction to online activity by raising students’ capacityto deal with the on -line challenges theymay face. It shouldbe remembered thataddiction is one ofthe great risks todevelopment duringadolescence (Eche-burúa & Co rral,2009; 2010). Howev er, addiction to Internet is bestaddressed through action on a very personal level,more comparable to that which might be taken by aclinical psychologist (Griffiths, 2005). Studies into theimportance of the interpersonal aspect of addictionhave shown that it is necessary to educate students inInternet use and encourage healthy attitudes and conductin online activity (Machargo, Lujan, León, López& Martín, 2003).The pre-test showed that young people generallyhave very little idea about the business dimension ofthe online platforms to which they belong. ConReddemonstrated how a specific educational program caneffectively contribute to redressing this potentially dangerouslack of information about social network usage,and we feel this is one of the program’s most positiveachievements. Our results reveal how important it isthat risk prevention on Internet and in social networksshould form part of the school syllabus: They alsoshow that this training does not necessarily have to becarried out in a virtual environment. The action takenshould be seen as part of the job of educating theComunicar, 39, XX, 2012© ISSN: 1134-3478 • e-ISSN: 1988-3293• Pages 129-137