Minchul Kim Mr.Padgett ENGL1102 April 9th 2014 Cyber Bullying, is it Really That Serious? Bullying is not just limited to what we usually think of bullying which is the common scenario of a big bad bully bull y in middle school who like to picks on little kids and steal lunch money. Bullying can go so much more than that and now it‟s even done electronically which takes this into a whole new level. This form of bullying is known as C yber bullying and is argued that cyber bullying can do more harm than bullying physically. The reason being that cyber bullying can occur at any time. The bullies use online resources like social media website, text messages, and chatting websites to bully their targets. C yber bullying is a major problem that is growing rapidly due to the ongoing growth of technology and social media and people who should be aware of seriousness of the problem. Bullying physically in person deals with physical altercations and verbal abuses but cyber bullying goes beyond that. The continuous harassment, threats, and the ability to bully any time they want can cause more harm than one would think. Today, almost everyone have access to some kind of online network such as cellular networks and the internet and that means almost everyone is not only bound to be cyber bullied but can actually become a Cyber bully. The other reason why cyber bullying is happening happ ening so much is how easy eas y it is to bullying someone anonymously. It is very simple and easy to hide your identity when using social media sites and
this attracts potential bullies. So basically, cyber bullies can bully an yone they want, at any an y time without even revealing themselves. To me, this seems like the best way to bully bu lly someone and is the reason why so many have been bullied by these cyber bullies. How does social media relate to cyber c yber bullying? Social media websites like Facebook and Twitter is used by hundreds of millions of people which are the perfect way for bullies to attack their target. Not only they are able to communicate through the website, they are also able to acquire information about the victim. As mentioned before, hiding your identity in these social media sites is very easy and this allows for the bully to attack the victim in ways wa ys they would have not done if it was in person. To bully someone online, all you have to do is click and type a few things and that is why cyber c yber bullying occurs so often. The research done by Francine Dehue, and Catherine Bolman is quite interesting. They selected 34 primary schools and 7 secondary to survey the students there about cyber bullying. Many questions were asked such as “Have “ Have you bullied someone via the internet this semester?” and “How have you been bullies on the internet this semester?” The majority of the results were being cyber bullied using MSN (Which is a social media chatting site). Then there were the questions of “What do you usually do when you are bullied on the internet or via text messages?” and there is variety of answers and those includ e, “pretending to ignore it”, talking with others about the bullying, ignore it, delete the messages, and surprising the answer „I bully the b ullier”. The last answer raises some concern. The cyber bullies turn their victims into bullies themselves? This may relate to the answer the students gav e to to their next question “How do you feel when you are bullied on the internet int ernet or via text messages?” Most of the students replied that they feel anger and right under that, they feel sad after getting cyber bullied. The oth er answers that was
given are “I don‟t trust other girls and bo ys anymore” and “ I don‟t like to go to school”. All of these answers are problems of cyber bullying. So now we know a little bit of this “new” form of bullying, so what exactl y can happen because of this? We can take this scenario as an example. Say there is this boy who seems to be a normal high school student who is doing pretty well in school. Then, some event occurred and he did something that is quite embarrassing or is not normally accep ted by the students. The news gets out and these days da ys if something interesting happens, it gets instantly spread out into social media informing almost everyone in in the school. But it doesn‟t stop there. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter has the power to spread it all over the world. Then, there will be those people who post negative and hurtful comments about that person but person but this won‟t be just a few comments, there will be hundreds of comments made by people that know the boy and also by people who does not even know the high school boy. As the saying saying goes “Words hurt more than actions”, these comments really hurt emotionally. Now let us get into why there were so many people who posted these negative and hurtful comments about this boy. As mentioned before, the reason cyber bullying happens h appens so often is because you can bully anyone at any time without really being physically there. It is so easy sometimes people do not even realize that posting these hurtful comments is considered c yber bullying. Be it that the bullies are intentional or not the outcome is still the same, the victim victim takes it all and can lead to depression and that can unfortunately lead to suicides. Suicide is serious and is nothing to joke about but many reported that after being cyber bullied, they had serious thoughts about suicide. There are also cases where people commit suicide due to cyber bullying. What‟s even more shocking is what the researchers David researchers David D.
Luxton found about suicide and social media. The researchers searched up “suicide” online and the some of the results are surprising. The first few is about factual info rmation about suicide, some were help sites for those who are having h aving suicidal thoughts but then there were sites labeled as pro-suicide (meaning sites that encouraged suicide). This was quite shocking for me, although this could have been expected ex pected seeing how there are all types of web sites but it was still very surprising. These pro-suicide websites are social websites where people can post their story and suicidal thoughts and then other users can posts to encourage those people with suicidal thoughts. I can imagine those who were cyber bullied can end up visiting these kinds of sites. Cyber bullying is affecting many people and the outcomes can be bad as suicide. Just as suicide is nothing to joke about, cyber bullying is nothing to joke about. People have to be aware of what cyber bullying is and how serious its consequences can be. There are many ways to get help about being cyber bullied. There are even hot line phones for cyber bullied victims and many ways you can deal with cyber bullies such as trying to prevent communication with the cyber bully and discussing with friends and family members. Cyber bullying is any type of bullying bull ying done online which means it‟s not limited to just websites like Facebook but can be anywhere from online forums and online gaming. I have experienced cyber bullying from these online sources and it is definitely a problem. p roblem. When I was younger, I was interested interested in editing photos and posted my pictures on online forums. There were negative and hurtful comments about my work and really put me down. After that, every time I would post anything else, people will always leave hurtful comments. Although I wanted to keep on getting better the other users to that site kept on giving negative comments comme nts I started to lose confidence in myself in doing this was depressed. I didn‟t know back then how people hard and hurtful people can be especially especiall y online. I always wonder if I never let tho se cyber bullies get to
my feelings, I would still be trying to work with ph oto editing. There was another significant incident with having this online gaming group that I was leading. I was the leader of the group where I plan what we were going to do such as playing a certain game together, or working on a project dealing coding. Although it seemed like it going great, later some people did not agree with me and decided to take control over the group. Not getting into too many details, the group disbanded and they formed another group without me. But that was not it. After we split up, there was constant harassment from the other group to me saying hurtful comments and insults. It may be hard for other people peop le to understand, but I personally felt a great amount of sadness for all of this. It felt I was hated and unwanted and this led me to being sad and depressed. Although this was years ago and now I am perfectly fine and accept everything that happened, but back then when the group decided to go against me, the constant cyber bullying and harassment was really strong, and it‟s not just something you can ignore or deal with easily. Cyber bullying is real problem that is growing with ho w the world is growing with technology. We already know cyber bullying is causing many problems such as people being harassed, causing depression, and even leading to suicide. Everyone needs to be aware that anyone could be cyber bullied and if it‟s serious, serious, it can lead to devastating consequences. con sequences. Lot of times, people get cyber bullied but does not know how to deal with it and allows the cyber bully to continue bullying you. We should always be aware if your friends could be cyber bullied and let them know you are here for them.
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David D. Luxton, Jennifer D. June, and Jonathan M. Fairall. Social Media and Suicide: A Public Health Perspective. American Journal of Public Health: May 2012, Vol. 102, No. S2, pp. S195S200.
Gwenn Schurgin O‟Keeffee, Kathleen Clarke-Pearson, Clarke-Pearson, The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families, Families, March 28, 2011, Pediatrics Vol 127 No 4 pp800-804
Francine Dehue, Catherine Bolman, and Trijntje Völlink. CyberPsychology & Behavior. April 2008, 11(2): 217-223.
Patricia W . Agaston, Robin Kowalski, Susan Limber, The Journal of adolescent health : Student‟s Perspectives on Cyber Bullying, Society for Adolescent Medicine 1, December 2007
