Cyber Bullying And Its Health Implications

Bullying by definition is a form of aggressive behavior in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. Bullying can take the form of physical contact, words or more subtle actions. [Why] Bullying has grown new outlets over the last decade. With social media outlets and text messaging added to the game, bullying is not just about getting tormented face to face anymore. Cyber bullying can include sending out mean or threatening emails and instant messages about a person, spreading rumors about someone and also include photos that a person would consider to be humiliating. [Chamberlin] Bullying can have many outlets. The most common form of bullying is still face to face confrontation. But

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.

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).

In our time today, there are many types of "bullying", but the one type I believe can be the worse and the one I will be discussing will be “Cyber bullying.” Cyber Bullying is an action when people either get together or by themselves purposely threaten or harass another kid through social media, such as Twitter or Facebook. The use of smart phones makes this action so easy to do and we can't really do anything to stop it from happening. These people can go and tweet about something any part of the day. All types of bullying are usually related in some type of way but the action of doing it is usually much different. Cyber bullying is one of the worst types of

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

Bullying is about lack of power as one person is powerless to stop the teasing or form of abuse. Bullying is the selective, uninvited, repetitive oppression of one person by another person or group. Similarly, cyber-bullying is defined as ‘the use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature.’ In the end, we must conclude that any type bullying is still considered bullying.

Bullying is described as the ongoing physical or emotional victimization of a person by another person or group of people. Cyber-bullying is an emerging problem in which people use social media and texting, to harass and cause emotional harm to their victims.

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

In recent years the problematic circumstances of bullying has been brought to attention as a widespread problem. Most bullying takes place on school grounds and outside school grounds, affecting numerous students. Bullying is any unwanted aggressive behaviors of youths or groups of youth who are not current dating partners or siblings that involves a perceived or observed power of imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Aggression such as name calling, hitting, tripping, purposely leaving out of the group, and rumor spreading may be considered as bullying. Bullying through technology, also known as cyberbullying is a form of bullying that occurs through chat rooms, instant messaging, e-mail, text messaging, pictures, and websites.

Bullying is said to occur when a child is the target of any behaviour that is (1) harmful or done with intent to harm; (2) repeated or occurs over time; and (3) characterized by an imbalance of power, such that the victim does not feel that he or she can stop the interaction (Raskaukas et al. 2010). Bullying is also defined as using superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force them to do something (oxforddictionaries.com). Bullying has many characteristics but usually comes in the form of verbal abuse, physical aggression or relational victimization. The first two forms of bullying have sometimes been called “direct bullying” as they include directly aggressive behaviour. Relational victimization is the manipulation of peer relationships in order to exclude someone (Rothon et al. 579-588). There are other forms of bullying such as cyberbullying. Cyber bullying is the use of technology to harass, threaten, embarrass, or target another person (kidshealth.org/en/parents/cyberbullying.html)

Modern day bullying consists of cyberbullying and in person bullying. Cyberbullying, also known as social media bullying or text bullying is the most common form of bullying today. It consists of people insulting or making fun of each other online. This form of bullying is most dangerous because nobody can see the harm that is being caused over the internet. They say whatever they want when the victims can't defend themselves.

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

We have all heard the phrase “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me” on the playground or school bus ride home. The phrase was normally thrown out to bullies during a fight in the schoolyard, pushes in the hall, food thrown in the cafeteria, or during the endless teasing and taunting on bus rides to/from school.

Technology can be used in many ways to cyber bully. Barnardos released a booklet in 2012 outlining a number of key risk factors of cyber bullying. Personal intimidation includes actions such as sending out threatening text messages, posting abusive and threatening comments on the victim’s Facebook profiles or other websites and the use of instant messaging in chat rooms etc. to threaten the victim further. Impersonation involves setting up fake profiles and web pages that are attributed to the victim; this also involves hacking or gaining access to the victims profile to contact or instant message others. Exclusion encompasses blocking an individual from a class group or community group on a social media website. Personal humiliation is a behaviour that involves posting images or videos of the victim that are intended to embarrass or humiliate them. This can be done on Facebook or by text messaging etc. And lastly false reporting, this is where the bully reports the victim to the service provider for a range of behaviours with a view to having the account suspended, blocked or deleted (Get With It, 2012).

Bullying is a bad thing but the worst of all the types of bullying is cyber bulling, it is a terrible weapon that can destroy someone's life and reputation. Cyber bullying is a part of bullying in which a person torments or harasses other people in a deliberate, repeated, and hostile manner, with technology. It has had a much greater effect on the world more than the traditional way of bullying.