Students all over Korea are hard at work posting comments on the Internet, positive comments! With more than 2.5 million positive comments posted to date, our Sunfull Movement, which I started five years ago, is proving an effective way to reduce students’ posting of malicious comments. Now we are looking to expand our idea to other countries.

The harassment of children and teenagers via the Internet and cellphones is becoming common in countries around the world. Every month, there are more stories in the news about teenagers taking their own lives because of the harassment they are enduring.

Before the Internet, a teenager could escape bullying when they were away from school, but now bullies can torment their victims 24 hours a day through harassing comments on social networking sites and malicious text messages.

There are many dedicated organizations and individuals around the world who are working to help children and teenagers deal with bullying. Many of these organizations work with schools to develop anti-bullying programs where they explain to students the potential impact of their actions if they bully another student, either directly or using technology. It’s not clear how effective telling students something is “bad” and “don’t do it” is at actually reducing the behavior.

This is where Sunfull, a non-profit organization, has a unique and effective approach to making students aware of the impact of their actions.

At Sunfull, we work with schools to have students post positive comments on the Internet and to send positive messages. So far, hundreds of thousands of students in Sunfull have posted more than 2.5 million positive comments to websites in Korea. Students at the middle and high school levels can receive community service hours.

These positive comments provide encouragement to the person who is being harassed, and may persuade those doing the bullying to change. More beneficial is the impact on the poster of the positive comments. As students read the malicious comments posted by others and draft their own positive comment, many find their attitudes changing. Many students find they no longer post malicious comments.

An additional benefit of students posting positive comments is that the students are using less profanity when talking with their peers. Posting positive comments changes the student’s attitude about how they communicate with others, both online and at school.

Sunfull got its start five years ago, when I learned that a young celebrity took her own life in part because of malicious and harassing comments that were being posted about her online. I was shocked to learn of the destructive power of the Internet, and decided to try a small-scale response to the malicious comments being posted on the Internet. I gave all of my students an assignment to post positive comments on different websites.

From that initial assignment, the idea of posting positive comments grew, first to the school system in Jeju-do and from there to other schools across country. Sunfull’s now in more than 3,000 schools throughout Korea.

Now we are looking to help other countries that are experiencing cyberbullying. People who are interested in Sunfull can contact us through our website at www.sun-full.org. 

By Min Byoung-chul

Min Byoung-chul, the founder of Sunfull, is a professor at Konkuk University in Seoul. He can be reached at bcm@bcm.co.kr. ― Ed.