A Brief Look at Bullying and Cyberbullying

Bullying is one of the leading causes in teen suicide today. People bullied in the past or present have been studied and it has shown that they have a lower quality of life. Though they have a lower quality of life, the have better physical and mental health. (“Seaman” 1). Studies have shown that most bullying happens in middle school and high school. There is bullying in elementary school but it is minimal and less serious (“Bullying Statistics” 1). Most kids refuse to speak up while being bullied in fear that the bully will just taunt them more (“Cyber-Safety Act” 2). Bullying has become a very serious issue regarding our society today.

The word 'bullying' has developed a very traditional definition amongst society: a face-to-face interaction involving either verbal abuse and/or physical abuse. With the technological advances that have occurred within the past 15 years, bullying has become anything but traditional. Children and teens have more access to the Internet and to social media platforms more than ever before, thus allowing them to avoid face-to-face interaction. Within the past 15 years, there has been a significant rise of cyberbullying in the youth demographic (ages 12-18) (Slonje, Smith, & Frisén, 2013). In order to understand what the difference between traditional bullying and cyberbullying is, one must familiarize themselves with the definition of cyberbullying.

For those who have been affected by the powerful outcomes of bullying, or have family, friends or peers who have been bullied, then it is known that it is a outrageous type of harassment. Bullying comes in all different shapes and sizes. It doesn 't matter the type of situation it is still wrong. The issue of bullying has been discussed throughout schools across the nation and most of the time it is only addresses physical, verbal and relational bullying. Cyberbullying is often forgotten, especially if a school is not up to date on all the different types of social media that it can occur on.

Let’s start off with drawing a fine line where harassment starts. Harassment is defined as, aggressive pressure or intimidation. Harassment starts usually when your contentment towards someone ends. While sitting behind a computer screen, it is easy to express this and seem powerful or intimidating.. Do you not know what you are doing to others though? Research studies show that, as of 2014, over half of young people report being cyber bullied. Everyday teenagers experience a form of cyberbullying, which can be defined as, the use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature. Sounds a lot like harassment, does it not? All states across America should enforce laws and policies that do not tolerate cyberbullying or any form of online harassment, for cyberbullying is harassment. It will promote a safer internet environment for everyone.

Bullying is a problem that affects individuals from all age groups, but mainly widespread among adolescents. It includes behaviors that focus on making someone else feel insufficient by mocking or harassing them. Bullying involves using physical violence, emotional harassment, and verbally belittling speech. It entails active actions with the intention of ostracizing another person (Howard, Flora & Griffin, 1999). Physical harassment is a form of bullying where the bully attempts to dominate another teenager physically (Stevens, 2010). It consists of punching, kicking, and other physical harmful activities, which are used to introduce fear in the victim and possible coerce them to do something (Howard, Flora & Griffin, 1999). Verbal bullying entails using demeaning language to destroy another person’s self-image (Stevens, 2010). Bullies who use the verbal techniques tease a lot and use sarcasm to hurt others’ feelings or humiliate the other teen especially in front of their friends or age mates (Thornberg et al., 2012). On the other hand, bullies who aim at getting another person to feel isolated use emotional techniques (Espelage & Holt, 2001). The bully uses this strategy to make other teenagers exclude the person being bullied. Today, cyberbullying is also becoming a very real problem for most teenagers. This type of harassment can be particularly devastating because the victim cannot find any safe place in the virtual

In the United States, there is an increasing amount of Bullying of various types among school-aged children. Bullying has not only become worse it is also more evident and proven now of the horrible affects bullying has on children causing long term psychological or physical damage and in some cases even ends in death as in the case of Phoebe Prince in 2004. (J. Holladay, 2011, par. 5) The chances and ability to inflict constant bullying or torment on a victim has increased as the internet and social media has come into children’s lives. This reduces the amount of time victims have without this negative influence on their lives and increasingly drives down their self-esteem raising the risk for them to do just what

More than 160,000 students in the United States missed school today (Center for Schools and Communities, 2015). They stayed home because they were afraid of being bullied. Most bullying occurs in schools, on school grounds, and on the bus, but as technology becomes more and more mainstream, cyber-bullying is now a norm. It does not matter what age, race, ethnicity, social class, or type of person a student is, many of them will experience bullying in some sort of way. In order to address bullying as a major issue affecting

One of the major issues in our society is bullying/cyber bullying. Numerous school aged suffer from this problem. Bullying is basically an unwanted behavior among young children, which involves the unexpected variation of strength. This leads into differences among school-aged children, which makes the bullies to have more power to bully other children. The author argues that bullying is now a severe problem which is a blackmail to student 's safety ("Bullying", 2016). These sounds do not horrify but who ever go through can feel the pain. There are few major causes of bullying, children who are physically challenged, race/religion, and children who have disabilities. They are the main causes that every victim suffers in their life.

Bullying has become a very serious problem in today’s schools, with one in four kids being bullied on a regular basis (School Bullying Statistics, 2015). More specifically kids between sixth and tenth grade are more likely to have involvement in bullying (School Bullying Statistics, 2015). Bullying can include physical, verbal or psychological attacks or intimidation intended to cause fear, or harm to someone (Ttofi & Farrington, 2010). Verbal bullying accounts for about 77% of all bullying (School Bullying Statistics, 2015). This can include spreading rumors, yelling, name calling, or other derogatory language based on race, gender, and more (School Bullying Statistics, 2015).

In addition with a rise in technology and extreme use of social networking sites, bullying not only occurs face to face but also online. The increasing occurrence of online bullying may be due to the anonymity that can come with some of these networking sites. Schools have picked up on cyberbullying and have raised awareness among students by offering support to ensure that victims don’t suffer in silence. Olweus (1993) stated that a student is characterised as a person who is bullied or victimised when they are exposed, continually and consistently to negative actions by others.

In the 2014-2015 school years, 292,400 students reported being bullied out of a total of 763,000 students (Student Reports of Bullying: results From the 2015 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, National Center for Education statistics(NCES)). Bullying does not affect only children in school, but can also happen to adults. Bullying has an immense effect on people of all ages. Whether it is an adolescent at school, or an adult in their workplace environment, some form of bullying may be present. There are many types and forms of bullying, such as, physical, verbal, and cyber, which is over the internet. Not only can bullying affect a person’s physical appearance, but some forms of

The rate of bullying in schools has been increasing at alarming rate. Bullying in school is the most common form of oppression after cyber bullying in the US. Statistics show that out of every four school-going children, at least one of them is a victim of this vice. It is even more alarming that bullying has implications beyond physical or emotional torture. Dropping out of school, loss of property, psychological breakdown, poor performance and even suicide

Before one can understand cyberbullying, he or she must first know the signs and characteristics of traditional bullying. According to Nansel (2001) and Olweus (1993), bullying is characterized by intentional behavior that is meant to cause pain, both physical and emotional, to another person due to an imbalance of social or physical power. There are two forms of traditional bullying: direct and indirect. Direct bullying is characterized by physical attacks, such as hitting and kicking; it is also characterized by non-physical attacks, such as teasing. The characteristics of indirect bullying are less obvious but much more common among adolescents. Indirect bullying often involves spreading of rumors, friendship manipulation, and pretending a person does not exist.

According to Teens Take Stand on Bullying, among the students who claimed they were frequently bullied in school, about 30% reported they were depressed, and 11% reported serious thoughts of suicide and suicide attempts. Bullying occurs everywhere; in school, the workplace and even at home among families. Bullying is defined as making someone feel less about who they are as a person thus resulting with the individual feeling helpless. Many victims of bullying end up expressing their pain through self injury. Although there are many forms of bullying such as cyberbullying, verbal bullying, and physical bullying they all have the same effect emotionally and physically.

At an early age, people are taught to respect others and treat them as they would want to be treated. When a child is first starting school he or she becomes friends with everyone in his or her class. It seems to be easier to keep an open mind and accept others for how they are at a younger age. As children get older they start to realize things about others that they think is ‘weird’. It is common for a child to not understand why another child acts or looks different then they do. Children have a very different sense of humor, meaning a child could make a joke about something or someone that is different. If a child or anyone is making fun of another it is called bullying. Bullying is more commonly found in schools but also in everyday life. Bullying used to be something that was done face to face in a school setting. Now, bullying can be done in many ways thanks to social media.