Adolescents Text Messaging: Article Analysis

Cyberbullying is an ever-growing issue that occurs daily. A survey was conducted on 80 random teenagers with the topic of Cyberbullying. The survey consisted of 15.19% of the surveyors being between ages14-16, 45.57% of the surveyed were teenagers between the ages of 16 to 18, 27.85% were between the ages of 18 to 20 and 11.39% of the surveyed were above 20. The survey results showed that 88.75% of people knew someone who has experienced cyberbullying and 58.75% have experienced cyberbullying themselves. The survey also stated that 40.51% of the 10-surveyed said that they know someone who has committed suicide based on the influences online. Out of the 58.75% who

The internet has created an entirely new world of social communications particularly for youths. There are no more barriers. Family, friends, young and old may now stay in touch with just about everyone, anywhere in the world through the use of email, text messaging, web chat, and instant messaging. Although, most interactions are friendly and in good nature, there are some that are not. The use of technology as a tool to antagonize, torment and intimidate others is now a widespread problem. Sadly, this form of bullying like all others is most common among children and young adults. Research done by Cox Communications on children between 13 thru 18 year-olds, 25 percent said they were cyber-bullied whether online or by cell phone (Cox Com. 2009). Also in 2007, the National Crime Prevention Council reported cyber-bullying as a problem that affected approximately half of all American teens. Since it is popular among this group of American teens, then it is safe look at some of possible reason cyber bullies of this age group are encouraged to take part in such activity.

1. This article was written based on a study of cyber bullying behaviors in a large group of middle and high school students. Increases in technology, and access to that technology have increased student ability to bully using an online forum. Not a lot of research had been done into this subject at the time of this article. Taking this into consideration there had been a few large scale studies done that corroborated the belief that cyber bullying is a significant problem. Researchers believed that due to the potential for exposure to this type of bullying, more studies needed to be done. With increased research there was the hope of diminishing the number of incidents of cyber bullying and the effects of those incidents. The research that had been completed also pointed to additional issues, including behavior problems, suspensions, substance abuse and depression among students who had experienced cyber bullying. The other side of previous research showed that the students who used cyber bullying as a weapon were more aggressive in their behaviors.

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.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the experiences of adolescents in cyber bullying based on the context of gender. The author says that social economic status appears not to be a factor influencing within cyber bullying. Also, Li explains that cyber bullying has been increasing because the information can be preserved and spread quickly throughout technology.

Societal norms in the United States in terms of adolescents utilizing the Internet once as an additional source of communication has become the primary mode of communication. Today, “92% of teens proclaim they go online daily to check popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter among others” (Lenhart 1). The alteration from physical communication to online communication has exposed a dangerous interaction for social relationships known as cyberbullying. In order to understand cyberbullying, it is critical to understand traditional bullying. Traditional bullying thrives off on aggressive behavior that is repetitive and involves a real or perceived power imbalance. Cyberbullying is a form of violence predominantly seen in teens that has the potential to lead to long-term harm. It involves the use of technology such as cell phones and the Internet with the primary objective of

Technology is always growing and in today’s world texting is a part of everyday life. Texting makes it easy to send and receive quick replies when you can not get on the phone to talk. Teenagers can know right away if something is wrong, or simply send someone a text to let them know they will be late. Texting has increased greatly in popularity and is now one of the main forms of communication among teenagers. However, I believe that this way of communicating has resulted in long lasting, negative effects for some teenagers.

Bullying has been happening for generation after generation. Today’s society made possible to bully people without being face to face. This type of bullying is called cyber-bullying. Teenagers uses theirs electronics advices as weapons to attack other people with hurtful things though the use of text messaging or social networking websites. Cyber-bullying can “damage a person emotionally” (Media). It can also make them have low self-esteem. In our society today, cyber-bullying is a new type of problem that many teenagers have to face.

Most teenagers utilize texting as their primary source of communication because hearing someone's voice through the phone is somehow strange and uncomfortable. Communicating via text has replaced interacting with the outside world. As a result, now that we have been introduced to tweeting, texting, and other forms of social media, it accounts everything we do must be shared with the rest of our associates. Teenagers have been abusing the privilege of communication through text has been shown through cyberbullying. The huge impact texting has had in our social lives as well as our language changes the way we interact with individuals by making us unaware of aggression in speech and limiting our knowledge.

Cyber-bullying, which describe an intrusion of ones’ privacy or a cyber-action that is intended to hurt others physically or verbally, has been occurring during the advanced period of technology, especially in the informative communication field. According to the Cyberbullying Research Center (Bullying Statistics, n.d.), it has been proven that eighty percent of teenagers have been using technology and half of them engaged in cyber-bullying. In other words, cyber-bullying includes direct attack to the society, such as harassment (Kean.edu, n.d.). There is a drastic increase of cyber-bullying around the world and it usually victimises teens who aged thirteen to seventeen (NCPC and HarrisInteractive, 2007). Researchers have proven that government

Mobile communication such as the use of cell phones have created an age of instant accessibility, with the main source of communication being via text messaging. Text messaging is a growing trend with young adults. College students use texting more than any other form of telecommunication and consider it to be an essential part of their social lives. (Murdock, 2013) The rise of text messaging has come about so quickly that few have stopped to ask how is this always available status and high levels of texting effecting one’s wellbeing. In the article, Texting While Stressed: Implication for Students’ Burnout, Sleep and Wellbeing, author Karla Klein Murdock of Washington and Lee University, studied a sample of college students to answer just

This study looked at a number of different factors related to cyberbullying, particularly focusing on the victims themselves. The section on age and grade level most relates to my research topic. They found that in their research on students in fifth, eight, and tenth grades, cyberbullying victimization rates started low, rose in middle school, and sank again in high school. It appears that there is a curvilinear relationship between age and frequency of victimization and according to this study, the worst cyberbullying occurs in middle school. Therefore, this would imply that attitudes towards cyberbullying and its threat to school-going minors would be low at young ages, increase through puberty and adolescence, and decrease again after around ninth grade. While it relates topically to the two previous sources, the findings of this study are slightly different than them. This one highlights that the relationship takes a parabolic or curved shape compared to a straight negative slope.

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

Previous studies on cyber bullying have been conducted at the middle school and high school levels. Bullying has always been a problem in this age range, so its natural for many researchers to target children as their survey participants, studying their activities and communication through technology. However, very few studies have been conducted on cyber bullying at the college-age. This is the age group that not only grew up when the computer found its way into almost every home, but when the cell phone became a

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).