Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying has seen its rise in recent decades, when internet came to practically every house and every school. Today in order to threaten someone you don’t need to have big muscles or own a weapon. In today’s world, an IP address is enough to make someone’s life miserable. While it may be seen as a harmless virtual naughtiness, it unfortunately has very physical and real life consequences. In last several years, cyberbullying became one of the most popular issues why children contact the ChildLine and one of the top reasons for adolescent suicide. Is there a cure for this new weapon of psychological mass destruction or is it to stay?
Usually when used incorrectly everything is a hazard. Overuse of Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat etc has already affected people’s lives and changed vectors of development and evolution. While machines bring obvious advantages to our lives, there are consequences that come with all the benefits that may seem debilitating. Cyberbullying is one of the most evident ones.
Bullying by means of modern technologies gave rise to the phenomenon of “cyberbullying”. With the help of electronic devices, aggressive messages can be instantly brought to the attention of a wider audience, and their senders can remain anonymous or use fictitious names, as well as have the ability to attach images explicit or degrading nature. This so-called "e-hostility", which includes different kinds of harassment and intimidation, through text messages, blogs, social networks, emails etcTeenagers most often fall victims of such persecutions. Scientists have found that adolescents suffer from cyberbullying much more that from even physical abuse. Experts call to pay special attention to this.
Unlike traditional bullying, which requires confrontation face to face, victims of cyberbullying often do not even see their abusers and sometimes do not understand, who approaches them in such a way. That is why due to cyber bullying children feel isolated, helpless and lost. This kind of bullying is much more difficult to stand than even the “traditional” school beating.
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development analyzed data from a study, which was attended by more than 15 000 adolescents. They were asked whether they feel depression, irritability, aggressiveness, fear. They were examined on how it affected their ability to concentrate. All survey participants were also asked to answer the question whether they have become victims of bullying in the Internet, whether they received negative messages through the Internet or text messages, and whether they did so themselves. It turned out that most of them were cyber attacked at least once in their life, others – confessed to have bullied someone themselves (Depression high). Another survey, conveyed by a British nongovernmental organization, showed that 45% of people under 18 years experienced bullying online (Facts and Statistics). Top reasons for cyberbullying were non-surprising: race, sexual preferences, looks. While teenagers may not fully understand the consequences of such behaviors, and they range from depression, to alcohol and drug abuse to suicide (Pappas).
Despite the variety of manifestations of teenage bullying, there are few fundamental features, that unite most cases:
- Hostility is based on the imbalance of power between the attacker and the victim;
- A manifestation of the hostility has a recurring character;
- Hostility is intentional.
A sad side-effect of bullying both cyber and “regular” is that victims usually feel so embarrassed, they are too scared to tell someone about it. This pattern limits possibilities of help that may come from outside and at the same time unleash bullies.
Psychologists all over the world are sound the alarm and call parents and adults to take a closer look at their children’s behavior. Specialists attribute the greatest danger of cyberbullying to the invisibility of the attacker. A person does not see the attacker and therefore cannot fight back. In addition, the persecution at school usually ends after class. And the possibility of online bully has no time limits. The victim knows that she can be caught up at any time. Hence, the constant tension and expectation of trouble, when home becomes no shelter and does not save from the threat (Pappas).
Helplessness - another component of this nightmare. This is real life, the victim may try to establish a rapport with the offenders, or somehow put them in place. In the online space, this is impossible. Another scary component is the passion of the masses for such entertainments: there are cases where movements like "All who are against Mary!" gained tremendous momentum. The conflicts have drawn hundreds of thousands of users who have and had never seen the notorious Mary, and had no idea what in general was at stake. Nowadays, people have become so hooked up on entertainment; they no longer understand there are actual people behind all the videos and memes that are emerging with this crazy speed.
This is where parental help should start acting. Parents these days should be very careful about their children. Especially the vulnerable adolescents. Any major change in behavior cannot be attributed to hormones. A very bad scenario is when parents think that cyberspace is something abstract and nothing real can happen in there. So, it sometimes happens that even if a child complains, parents just say “Oh, this is Internet. Log out and go play”.
Main methods of prevention are very simple. Explain to children from a young age that their phone number, email address and other personal contact information should not be given out just to anybody. It is important to explain to kids that privacy and security setting are there for a reason and that it is important to pay attention to passwords. Another thing parents could teach their children is that it is not safe to make friends with just anybody online and strongly advise not to publish any personal information about themselves.
Ideally, of course, every parent should keep track of electronic contacts of his child – not for espionage but for a needed reassurance. However, seldom do parents have such trustful relationships with their children.
However, if a child became a victim of an Internet harassment, parents should not expect it to settle by itself. Taking a closer look at the situation, parents should take action, after a talk with their children, of course. For sometimes, what may seem like cyberbullying to parents may be a way of communication among their kids’ friends. Therefore, jumping into the conflict behind child’s back may even worsen the situation.
If the persecution is happening in social networks, parents could gather evidence, save mocking message, and file a complaint to the administration of the site, for example administration. On the main page, there is always a link that allows you to contact the project coordinators. Parents may ask to remove all objectionable messages, or maybe even the whole account.
If the child is being bullied over the phone, it would be logical to inform the service provider. If the bullying does not stop, change the phone number.
If the cyberbullying is taking place at school, then contacting the administration is also advisable. However, how seriously the administration would react to a problem depends only on the individual qualities of the teaching staff.
In recent years, legislations of various countries have seen changes that include persecution for cyber bullying. While, now the issue is in most cases questionable and hard to prove, there are small steps that bring a palpable relief to the situation.
Cyberbullying is of course a problem that affects not only teenagers, but also people of every age and social group. However, like with any issue, it seems like things are being done and the problem seem to become easier to maintain or to control to certain extent. The future evolution of the Internet technologies, there will be new rules in controlling the cyberspace. Hopefully, with every new invention there will be a solution how to solve the problems that emerge with it. While we wait, it would be advisable for everyone, not to be so careless about what information is going to the virtual world, because the virtual world is the new real one.
Annotated Bibliography
Pappas, Stephanie. “Social media cyber bullying linked to teen depression”. Scientific American. 23 June 2015. Retrieved on August 4 from http://scientificamerican.com
In her article, Stephanie Pappas indicates how cyberbullying and depression go hand-in-hand. She gives examples of several researches that support her statement. Her main concern that comes from her research is that most teenagers that fall victims to cyberbullying keep their issues to themselves and thus miss out on the help that can be provided to them.
“Depression high among youth victims of school cyber bullying, NIH researches report”.
National Institute of Health. 21 September 2010. Retrieved on August 3 from https://www.nih.gov
This is a more scientific, more academic approach to studying cyberbullying than that of Stephanie Pappas. With graphs and proper terminology, Dr. Wang – key researcher – explores the outcomes and the underlying reasons for adolescent cyberbullying. His conclusions are not surprising but promising.
“Facts and Statistics on bullying and cyber bullying”. Antibullyingpro.com. 7 April 2015.
Retrieved on August 3 from www.antibullying.pro
A British nongovernmental anti-bullying project that is being funded by the charity of The Diana Award is opening eyes to a wide range of numbers that help understand the nature of problems related to cyberbullying. In bullet points, it does not overwhelm with terminology, but gives a very clear look at the issue.
