As a communication tool the new technologies provide an ease of access, a variety of different tools and a potential world wide audience.  They are primarily used for communication with friends.  For these young people access to the new technologies is perceived as a lifeline to maintaining friendships.  The cell phone and the computer are perceived as being indispensable. 

In many ways this is a youth dominated interactive world that has little adult supervision.  At times it operates as if it is a sub-culture.  A world that many adults have minimal knowledge of and cannot understand because it has its own language.  This technological world causes many parents to feel uncomfortable, excluded by a language barrier of text message lingo, acronyms and emoticons.  A world where the text messages for many adults need to be translated by a translation engine for short message service(SMS), such as transl8it.com.  When a problem arises there is a huge belief divide to cross in order for the young person to approach an adult.  The young person feeling they cannot do anything to stop the bullying rationally questions whether their parents will be of any help. 

The majority of interactions with new communication technologies are positive, but here is a risk that it could turn negative.  When an incidence occurs cyberbullying can be even more difficult to detect than regular bullying as the perpetrators think their actions are anonymous.  In cyberbullying the victim may not know who is doing the bullying and in some cases the bully may not know the target of their abusive behaviour personally.  The technology gives a sense of being cloaked - cyber invisibility.  

Feeling securely hidden behind passwords and the technology it is easy to feel anonymous and many young people feel no responsibility to take ownership of their actions.  With no visual or immediate verbal feedback the consequences are removed from the individual.  As nancy Willard of the Responsible Netizen Institute explains, this is a world where actions, with little fear of consequences, can lead to little empathy for its victims.¹⁰  Almost 60% of youth, at secondary school level, reported in a national 2001 survey they have said things they normally wouldn't say in real life when they were chatting, using instant messaging or participating in chat rooms and news groups. ¹¹