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Cyberbullying : Bullying And The Digital Age

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Years ago bullying was generally thought of as an occurrence that took place in person, on the schoolyard, between people who have a “peer-to-peer” relationship. (Whittaker, Kowalski, 2015) We’re all familiar with what bullying looks like in a traditional sense. Larger kids, picking on the weaker, usually do to something that makes the victim stand out as different. In Kowalski, Limber, and Agatston’s book, “Cyberbullying : Bullying in the Digital Age” they introduced some real life examples:
Jack was small and somewhat immature for his age. For the past 2 years (since 2nd grade), Jack had been the target of jokes about his size. Most of the boys in his class called him “shrimp.” He usually tried to laugh off the name-calling, but lately …show more content…

Cyberbullying is one of those negatives. Because of the internet and social media, we now have the tools to anonymously harass and bully others from anywhere in the world, without face-to-face confrontation. (Kowalski, Limber, Susan, Agatston, 2012)
I found many definitions for bullying throughout several academic sources. However, after looking at a few sources I found some of the most common characteristics of bullying. I found that bullying is: Unprovoked, Intentional, aggressive, repetitive, involves a desire for power, and physical, verbal, or visual harassment. For the sake of this paper I will be defining Bullying as the unprovoked and repetitive act of intentional and aggressive behaviour that typically involves an imbalance of power, social status, or authority. (Kowalski, Limber, Susan, Agatston, 2012) (Reisdorph, 2015) (Patchin, 2016) We will also assume that this traditional form of bullying strictly involved face to face interactions. Now how can we define cyberbullying? With the anonymity that can be offered by social media and instant messaging, there is no longer a clear imbalance of power that goes along with traditional bullying. Anyone can bully and harass another person online, while remaining anonymous. It also has no face-to-face contact, or physical harassment. This means cyberbullying doesn’t fit in with our definition of traditional bullying, so how do we define it? The Cyberbullying Research Centre

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