The Pros And Cons Of Cyber Bullying

Cyberbullying is a relatively new threat, and it is very similar to traditional bullying. Despite the fact that cyberbullying and traditional bullying both share the common goal of harassment, cyberbullying differs from traditional bullying in that it does not stop at the schoolyard, and can continue when the victim is far away from the aggressor. It is just as devastating as common bullying, and sometimes is even more damaging. Professors Sameer Hinduja and Justin W. Patchin note in their journal, “Cyberbullying Creates Dangerous Stress and Anxiety”, that cyberbullying affects anywhere between 10-40% of students (contingent on their age group) (par. 1). J.D. Kelly A. Albin, in her article “Bullies in a Wired World”, defines cyberbullying as “…the ‘willful and repeated harm inflicted through use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices’” (157). It is caused by the fact that children feel their actions are mitigated when they use social media, as it creates the illusion of indirectness, and its effects range anywhere from mild depression to suicide.

Each one of these forms can trigger a chain reaction of events with repercussions for the victim and perpetrator. They can also help in detecting whether someone is being cyberbullied. Cyberbullying has distinctive features from traditional bullying in terms of detection and does not come with obvious signs such as bruises if traditional bullying would be the case. It is hard to detect but some signs to be vigilant for are withdrawal, aggressive behavior, sudden change of friends, withdrawal from technology, anxious or overly stressed out, and self-harm. According to the National Crime Prevention Council, more than 1 in 3 adolescents have experienced cyber threats online, half or more of young people do not inform their parents they are victims of cyberbullying, and over half of adolescents have been bullied

In the 21st century technology has led to a new form of bullying, cyber bullying (Dhariff & Hoff, 2007). Over the past 30 years bullying have incremented rapidly worldwide, affecting people of all ages. Whether it’s done via the internet or the traditional way, bullying has always being around, affecting more than 200 million children worldwide (Kandersteg Declaration Against Bullying in Children and Youth, 2007). According to a research study conducted by Juvonen & Gross (2008) and Patchin & Hinduja (2009), cyber bullying and bullying are often interdepended (Beran & Li, 2007; Willard, 2007b.). Recent studies on cyber bullying showed that in every 10 Australian kids who were bullied online, 84% of them were also bullied in school (No Bullying, 2014). Bullying is referred to the repeated verbal, social,

Internet usage in children and adolescents has been increasing in a steadily fashion in the past number of years and with the increase in internet usage, a new form of bullying has developed – Cyber bullying. Cyber bullying can be defined as “the electronic posting of mean-spirited messages about a person,” (Merriam-Webster, 2012). This form of bullying can come through various mediums including but not limited to text messages, emails, videos, and social networking sites. There is an overwhelming amount of information that defines cyber bullying, identifies the demographics of bullies and victims of cyber bullying, and identifies the outcomes of cyber bullying on victims. More focus needs to be placed on who the perpetrators

Bullying is defined as, a person or group of people who attack a person or groups of people because of a sense of superiority. Bullying has been a vastly spread epidemic, which has taken on many new forms such as bullying over social media otherwise known as cyberbullying. Cyberbullying has added new elements of bullies being able to follow their victims even after school hours. Most schools have programs such as anti-bullying to stop all forms of bullying, however, some people may not see the impact it has until it has hit you or someone that you care about. Bullying is not being effectively addressed in schools to stop the epidemic because the bullying that happens online can follow both the victims and perpetrators to school, bullying can affect the victims grades and drive in school, and schools have means to deal with more than just one side of the bullying they also have less bias than the parents.

While teenagers are widely affected by bullying in person, the internet has widened the playing field. Cyber Bullying (and bullying in general) is done with the primary purpose of inflicting emotional distress on the victim. Much more of the cruel incidents will occur if the issue is not fixed. The thought of others not knowing who is doing the bullying could be the reason why teens find it more appealing to cyber bully. More and more teenagers are committing cyber bullying which shows a need for stiffer consequences for their actions. Teens are aware of the effects bullying causes and its consequences to others. As Jeff Chu stated in his article “You Wanna Take this Online?” “Technology has transformed the lives of teens, including the way they pick on one another.”

In the past few years, there has been a tremendous amount of improvements of technology use in teenagers causing a new problem to arise. “Half of students admit to being bullied online, while an estimated seventy-nine percent of teenagers say it’s a problem,” (“An Old Problem with a New Face”). Since the rapid growth of technology, cyber bullying has become life-threatening for too many teenagers. Now that teenagers have phones and technology almost twenty-four hours a day, they are putting themselves at a greater risk of being cyber bullied. Cyber bullying is different from regular, old-school bullying; cyber bullying is using the internet to ruin the life of other teenagers. “Cyber bulling is when a teenager is tormented, threatened,

While cyberbullying affects each child differently, there has been a clear correlation between victims and non-victims and their self-esteem. In one study, bullied victims had less self-esteem than those who were not bullied online. Additionally, it was reported that victims of cyberbullying were thirty percent more likely to think about committing suicide (Cyberbullying Research Center, 2012). With the lack of parent supervision, it was found that those who spent more than three hours per school day on social networks were 110% more at risk to be a cyberbully victim as compared those who do not spend as much time online (Gilkerson, 2012). What may be worse is the fact that majority of those bullied online do not tell their parents or an adult about what occurred. Despite the fact that most adolescents state that bullying occurs more offline then online, cyberbullying is still a real and large threat to the youth of America (Lenhart, 2007).

Bullying has been around since the beginning of time. Parents may remember when they were kids and the bully would pick on them or their friends by stealing lunch money or just getting beat up, and that was the end of it. The victims remember the hurt, frustration, and sadness it caused. However, these days, bullying is not just happening on the playground or at the bus stop, it is happening on the Internet and on cell phones, making it possible to bully a child 24 hours a day with multiple bullies and thousands of kids watching. Cyberbullying follows children nonstop and into the safety of their house. Sometimes kids are afraid to inform their parents about the cyberbullying that they will think its there fault. Or that their parents will call the bullies parents or other parents, making the bullying worse. However, the effect and pain that comes from cyberbullying is real. People underestimate cyberbullying, just because it is happening online and not in person. Cyberbullying can lead to many different factors like drinking, and drugs, poor grades, depression, eating disorders. Many students have even taken their own lives because of another student saying something to them online. Cyberbullying has been taking place a lot more in middle and high schools because of the increased usage of social media networks and technology. Cyberbullying is worse and more harmful than traditional bullying.

In the year 1997, the first social media forum was created and used as a new way

Cyberbullying is bullying that takes place on digital devices like computers, cell phones, and tablets. Stopbullying.gov say “Cyberbullying can occur over SMS, Text, and apps or online in social media, gaming, where people can participate in, or share content. Cyber Bullying includes sending, posting, or sharing negative, hurtful, false, or meaningful content about someone else. This can include sharing someone’s personal or private information causing embarrassment or humiliation.” this definition from my perspective is pretty accurate.

In 2012, one of the biggest stories about cyberbullying broke out when a student named Amanda Todd hanged herself. Amanda was in the sixth grade and began using a chat to meet new people online, and one day a boy convinced her to show her breasts to him on this chat. When she did, he took a screenshot of her and posted it all over Facebook and other social media accounts. She eventually moved schools because of the bullying she received from this picture however the bully kept adding her from anonymous accounts and posting the picture repeatedly (NoBullying.com, 2016.) This is case represents how bullying can turn into cyberbullying because the internet is everywhere, and the fact this person was stalking Amanda online and posting her pictures to Facebook caused her to be bullied in school. Eventually Amanda posted a video on YouTube to talk about bullying which received over 17 million views, and eventually she hung herself because she couldn’t handle the bullying and cyberbullying she was receiving.

For such a long time, physical bullying has been the largest problem schools and parents had to face with their children, but now another form of bullying has arisen; cyber bullying. In society today, teens are drawn cell phones, laptops, and other technological advancements. Social media is a way for many teens and adolescents to interact with one another and share countless happenings of their personal lives. Cyber bullying occurs when individuals use the internet to send or comment cruel and unnecessary messages to another. In its various forms cyber bullying includes, indirect and direct harassment, posting inappropriate pictures, impersonating another being, or just being plain cruel. Although anyone can become a victim of cyber bullying, improper use of the internet can further induce harassment, due to the adolescents desire to use modern day technologies. The harassers could be classmates, online “friends’’, or anonymous users. One barrier that is difficult to overcome is determining who is responsible for the attacks online, because many bullies hide behind fake usernames or profiles to protect their real identity, which is commonly known as “hiding behind a screen”. (Bonanno 2013). The motives for a cyber-bully are never clear, some might say

With the internet being so popular today, many people may not have recognized the issue of cyberbullying and how it has affected many individuals throughout the world. Cyberbullying is the act of sending harassing and threatening messages to another individual through the internet. It has impacted a lot of people and is known to lead to fear, intolerable anxiety, depression, and has also lead to suicide. Since things are communicated and advertised on the internet a lot, the issue of cyberbullying can reoccur since nothing is accurately taken down. Individuals who bully do it because they want to feel better about themselves and sometimes are just looking for a good laugh. “Adapting to these new models of communication, cyberbullying has emerged as a new and real danger to students” (Stauffer, 2011, p.2). Cyberbullying is an issue that is only going to keep getting worse if nothing is being done to prevent it. Throughout this paper, I will be explaining the discrimination throughout cyberbullying, the impact it has on kids and teenagers, and how it can be prevented with better parental as well as school administration supervision.

Part of this stems from the newness of research in this area. Part of this also stems from the fact that perpetrators are often anonymous, and victims are often unwilling to come forward for fear that their parents will "protect them" by revoking their computer privileges. We do know, however, that cyber bullying occurs most frequently among middle school students, particularly those in seventh and eighth grades. Researchers have also found a link between cyber bullying and social anxiety. Both victims and perpetrators have higher levels of social anxiety than individuals not involved with cyber bullying. For victims of cyber bullying, heightened levels of social anxiety are not all that surprising when one considers that almost 50% of the individuals in one study did not know the identity of the person who cyber bullied them.