Bullying Is An Old Phenomenon That Only Been The Subject Of More Systematic Research?

Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among people of all ages, but mostly school-age children. Society has been aware of bullying since around 1693, but it was not viewed as a real problem until the 1970s. “While overall incidents of school violence, such as assault and theft, have declined in the last decade, bullying is on the rise.” (qtd in Tyre) The percentage of middle and high school students that have been victimized by bullying went up from 14 percent in 2001 to 32 percent in 2009. (Tyre)

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.

Cyberbullying is when psychological harm is done through the use of electronics such as computers, cell phones, e-mail, social networking, and instant messaging (Clancy 579-582; Hanel, Trolley 33). However, in addition to the verbal behaviors, cyberbullying can happen when someone posts pictures or videos without the consent of the other person, creates hate websites of the victim, makes web pages posing as the victim, and such (Hinduja, Patchin, “Traditional and Nontraditional” 728; Willard 1). Cyberbullying is done two ways: direct and indirect. Direct cyberbullying is when such material is sent directly from the bully to the victim. Indirect cyberbullying is when the bullying is done through another person, another person’s screen name or cell phone, anonymously, or by hacking

Raskauskas and Stoltz (2007) asked a group of 84 adolescents about their involvement in traditional and electronic bullying. The researchers defined electronic bullying as “…a means of bullying in which peers use electronics {such as text messages, emails, and defaming Web sites} to taunt, threaten, harass, and/or intimidate a peer” (p.565). The table below is a frequency table showing the adolescents’ reported incidence of being victims or perpetrators or traditional and electronic bullying.

Bullies may abuse their victims verbally, physically, or psychologically. Bullying may involve name-calling, pushing or hitting, or preventing an individual from joining a social group or participating in an activity. It may also involve harassing, embarrassing, or threatening a person using cell phones, text-messaging devices, interactive games, instant messages, or websites. This type of bullying is called cyberbullying (Funk & Wagnalls). Unlike traditional bullying, which is most likely to occur at school, cyberbullying can occur anywhere that children and youth have access to technology, leaving targets accessible to perpetrators at any time of the day or night. Although bullying is often associated with children, bullying of adults by adults is just as pervasive and harmful. Adult bullies are characterized as often being subtle in their attack by starting harmful rumors or by using sarcastic or demeaning language to dominate or embarrass, being self-centered, lacking empathy for others, spontaneous in their attacks, and/or using the threat of attack (as opposed to using physical violence or actions) as a means to frighten and demonstrate power (Kowalski).

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.

Baezelon (2013) says that “Bullying is a particular form of harmful aggression, linked to real psychological damage, both short and long term.” A bully is someone who feels the need to pick on others, sometimes due to his or her own inferiority. There are four different types of bullying. Physical bullying is any type of physical harm to someone, such as hitting, kicking, or pushing. Verbal bullying is putting someone down through words some examples are name calling or insults. Indirect Bullying is gossiping or spreading rumors with the intention to hurt the victim. Cyber Bullying is hurting someone through social media. (Make Beats not Beatdowns,

Bullying can be both aggressive and verbal abuse among people that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose. Physical examples of bullying include pushing and shoving another person. While emotional bullying consists of any type of name calling, sending untrue and hurtful messages, and starting rumors about someone. Bullying can happen anywhere, not just in school but in your neighborhood and it doesn't necessarily have to occur in person. Another form of bullying is cyberbullying- bullying that takes place using electronic technology such as cell phones, computers, and various other devices. Examples include a mean text, a fake page/profile about someone with false statements or posts, and through videos and various websites. Bullying is one of the leading causes of suicides each year in the United States, thus spreading awareness about this is very important as it is responsible for taking the lives of many innocent

Physically being bullied frequently involves some sort of physical assault or attack, or can also consist of having one's personal belonging destroyed, tampered or stolen. Verbal bullying comes from the usual form of name calling that may be done due to a person's gender make up, sexual orientation, religious, age, or race. Due to the increase availability of technology indirect bullying is one of the most widespread types of bullying. It is usually the kind of bullying that countless people may do without even knowing so. Indirect bullying is the distribution falsely stories and rumors about an individual without the person knowing so, as well as the deliberate exclusion from social groups and gatherings. A current major issue, cyber bullying can also fall into the grouping of indirect bullying, but also includes bullying that is done with the use of any electronic device such as, email, text messaging, pictures through the use of text or email, message boards, websites, blogs, and even

Bullying is a problem that is on the rise in society; however, many individuals have a distorted view of what bullying entails. Usually when someone thinks of bullying, they assume that it is a standard part of a child’s life. This view, on the contrary, is erroneous. Bullying is actually abnormal behavior, many times, leaving victims with a dismantled self identity. Since some people do not understand the consequences of bullying, the actions of the bully often go unnoticed and are perceived as “kids being kids”. The issue of bullying goes deeper than that nevertheless. Despite the erroneous views that many individuals hold towards bullying, it is still a distortion of normal behavior in children.

Jose, P. E., Kljakovic, M., Scheib, E., & Notter, O. (2011). The Joint Development of Traditional Bullying and Victimization With Cyber Bullying and Victimization in Adolescence. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 22(2), 301-309. doi:10.1111/j.1532-7795.2011.00764.x

Pushing, shoving, name calling, teasing. When one reads these words, the first thing that we might associate it with is bullying. Whether or not we have experienced it ourselves, we have at least heard about it. However, as technology advances, so does the method of bullying. Today in our world that is run by technology, the modern method of bullying is called cyber bullying. The most recent definition of this is, “…………………This type of bullying allows the perpetrator to hide behind a computer screen or a phone screen and harass their victims without the need to meet face to face. This causes a new problem to arise in our public schools. Traditional bullying taking place at school was easy to spot and see; therefore, immediate punishment

Bullying is all over the world. Each year there is over 3.2 million victims being bullied. Approximately 160,000 teens skip school every day because of bullying.17% of American students report being bullied 2 to 3 times a month in a year. To many within a school semester. Since 2002, fighting behaviour has increased, especially in grades six to eight. Boys are more likely to start bullying because of being bullied in their past. Girls are most likely to cyberbully. Nearly 43% of kids have been bullied online. According to Gale, cyberbullying is the use of the Internet, smartphones, or other electronic communication devices to spread harmful or embarrassing information about another person, such as talking about people, telling other people’s

There are many types of bullying which is highly dependent on the nature of bullying. for example, the physical bullying may incorporate such behavior as hitting, pinching, kicking and any form of physical abuse considers physical bullying. The verbal bullying which incorporate spreading rumors, gossiping, insulting and teasing. Next which is the emotional bullying and this includes isolating and excluding other from the group. Finally, the cyber bullying which is another form of a violence practiced when online communication (Rai,2012). In addition, further elaboration for Physical bullying which happens when the bully practices physical aggression to force, threaten, or damage the sufferer. This is typically the easiest shape of

Bullying can be hard to define, because research has shown that it comes in many forms which makes it difficult to find one set of characteristics that will describe a bully. Conclusively, studies have defined bullying as a set of repeated aggressive behavior that is intended to harm someone, which usually involves an imbalance of power between the victim and the perpetrator (Morgan, 2012, p. 174). Studies have shown that there are two distinct types of bullying, which is a direct form of verbal and physical aggression, and indirect, which often results in name calling, rumors and exclusion (Aluedse, 2006, p. 38). This form of peer victimization can have devastating effects on a child 's academic work and their physical and psychological well being (Limber, 2003, p. 23). In terms of gender, boys are more likely to be involved in physical bullying (direct) as for girls are more likely to be involved in indirect bullying (Wang et al, 2009, p. 371). Previous research indicates, that parents and friends are two important factors of social interaction associated with bullying and victimization among adolescences. Bullying is quite common among middle school children, because it is during this time that children go through puberty and hormonal changes. During this time students are looking to be accepted and fit into a specific group; however, when there is a lack of acceptance and esteem due to victimization, this can cause children to isolate themselves from those around them