Traditional Bullying And Cyberbullying

In addition to raising general awareness of bullying at school, something must also be done to address the rising trend of bullying in the digital world. In the past, bullying primarily occurred in person. There were no other avenues for this victimization to take place. However, with the rise of digital

Many would agree that technology has advanced remarkably, in the past decade and has impacted the the as we know it in so many good ways. However, it has come with some downfalls as well. One of these downfalls is, the impact technology has on teenagers especially when it comes to social media and instant messaging. With that being said, there is this epidemic that the younger generations face with the internet. This includes, being harassed over the internet or cyberbullying. Unfortunately, bullying has always been an issue especially among young adolescents. However, now we have the same issue yet the bullies are able to hide behind a computer screen and this has been affecting teenagers in a negative way just as traditional bullying has. According to Merriam-Webster cyberbullying can be defined as “the electronic posting of mean-spirited messages about a person (such as a student) often done anonymously”. Cyberbullying usually results in embarrassment and can sometimes lead to an even worse feeling if continued. According to the indicators of school crime and safety report done in 2013; 6% of students in middle school were cyberbullies and 16% of high schoolers reported that in the past year they have been harassed over the internet. Even though those numbers are smaller than students who get bullied in person, cyberbullying still has negative effects on the victim. The purpose of this paper is to reach out to kids who

Traditional bullying used to be more common back when there was no texting or social media. Bullying consistently takes place in person: the common actions often include teasing, taunting, humiliating, and sometimes showing acts of violence. Cyberbullying takes place online making it more humiliating and intolerable for the victim since the information doesn’t go away. They both equally cause the victim emotional distress and significantly lower their confidence while the bully feels more authoritative and quite satisfied. While the fear of getting bullied grows in the victim, they start to feel unsafe and decide not to go to school. All the students deserve to attend school without the fear of getting humiliated, harassed, or bullied, but what are the bystanders and teachers doing about bullying?

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.

Bullying has been around since the beginning of time. Parents may remember when they were kids and the bully would pick on them or their friends by stealing lunch money or just getting beat up, and that was the end of it. The victims remember the hurt, frustration, and sadness it caused. However, these days, bullying is not just happening on the playground or at the bus stop, it is happening on the Internet and on cell phones, making it possible to bully a child 24 hours a day with multiple bullies and thousands of kids watching. Cyberbullying follows children nonstop and into the safety of their house. Sometimes kids are afraid to inform their parents about the cyberbullying that they will think its there fault. Or that their parents will call the bullies parents or other parents, making the bullying worse. However, the effect and pain that comes from cyberbullying is real. People underestimate cyberbullying, just because it is happening online and not in person. Cyberbullying can lead to many different factors like drinking, and drugs, poor grades, depression, eating disorders. Many students have even taken their own lives because of another student saying something to them online. Cyberbullying has been taking place a lot more in middle and high schools because of the increased usage of social media networks and technology. Cyberbullying is worse and more harmful than traditional bullying.

Technology is rapidly advancing at a dizzying rate which has seen many amazing feats but has also introduced and increased the act of Cyberbullying. Cyber bullying can be defined as targeting someone using any form of technology (this includes social media) to tease, stalk or humiliate someone online (Dictionary.com, 2016). Cyberbullying is so detrimental because it encourages the targeting of an individual; It is often done in secret with the bully hiding who they are by creating false profiles or names, or sending anonymous messages. It is difficult to remove as it is shared online so it can be recorded and saved in different places. Cyberbullying has such a negative impact that research shows that there is a correlation between the violent

There is no doubt that technology has changed our society. Now things are faster, easier, and more efficient than ever before. With all these changes, bullying has been impacted in a positive and negative way. Although technology has given victims of bullying an outlet to complete education without going to school, technology has made it easier for bullying to happen on anonymous apps and social media sites.

Online bullying is one of the many ways teens bully each other. Cyberbullying and traditional bullying have numerous differences. There are many ways you can be cyberbullied. It’s not just traditional bullying anymore that teens face. Unfortunately, 33% of all youth have been cyberbullied, as stated by the website worldvs.cyber bullies. According to Ellen DeGeneres, an advocate for bullied victims, “13 million kids are bullied every year and three million don't go to school because they are scared.” These statistics indicate how huge of a problem this is. As a result there are countless victims. A well known victim of cyberbullying was Phoebe Prince.

This proposal will focus on the topic of cyberbullying. More specifically, cyberbullying vs. traditional offline bullying will be examined. This objective of this paper is to determine whether or not cyberbullying is a worse form of bullying than traditional offline bullying; whether the former has more of an impact than the latter. Currently, there is still some debate about this issue. While many claim that cyberbullying is worse than offline bullying, there are those who claim that physical bullying has more of an impact (Lenhart, 2009). Others do not say this directly; however, they highlight the type of bullying as being more important than whether the bullying occurs online or offline (Bauman, 2012).

Many negative effects are outcomes of cyber bullies. The impact cyber bullying has on kids is detrimental. Victims can develop psychological problems. For example, victims begin having anxiety, lower self-esteem, and frustration. They may also be diagnosed with depression. It’s tough to ignore cyber bullying. Compared to school bullies, internet bullies cause their victim more emotional pain. Children and teenagers are able to escape school bullies when they return home. However targets of cyber bullying don’t have that advantage.

“Our increasingly connected world has created another platform for bullies to harass their victims. No longer are bullies confined to picking on other kids on the school playground; today, many bullies are refraining from physical assaults, opting instead for around the clock bashing via email, social media, instant messaging and other online platforms. Although parents, teachers and other authority figures can no longer count on physical signs like scars, torn clothing and bruises to tell the story, this certainly doesn’t mean that the effects of cyber bullying are any less damaging.” (Cyber Bullying Statistics 2014. (n.d.).) In 2014, 52% of young people report being cyber bullied and approximately 10%-20% of those experience cyber bullying regularly. Of the young people who reported cyber-bullying incidents, 33% of them reported that their bullies threatened them. Over 55% of all teens who use social media have witnessed bullying through it and more than 80% of teens regularly use cell phones, making them the most popular form of technology and a common medium for cyber bullying.

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.

This type of bullying has the potential to lead to many health problems in an individual. Victims of cyberbullying are more likely to turn to drugs or alcohol at a young age to escape the pain they are feeling (“Cyberbullying”). This type of behavior changes the person through and through. They are now dependent on a substance to subside their pain that has been inflicted on them. Another health problem that has been linked to cyberbullying is having abdominal pains and headaches (Drummond). These victims have so much anxiety due to the torture they are facing their bodies are reacting in an unhealthy way. Insomnia has also been connected to this type of bullying (Drummond). This may be because adolescents are unaware of when another rumor or piece of private information about them is going to be published. 34% of teenagers are said to be the victims of cyberbullying in a study conducted by Finnish researchers which shows that these victims are more likely to have abdominal pains, and suffer from insomnia (Drummond). If the bullying continues more problems are likely to develop in the individual, physically or mentally.

Bullying is a cruel and intentional behavior whose aim is to show the imbalance in power between the bully and the victim. Bullying is a repeated action and can involve verbal, physical and relational behavior (Nansel, Tonja et al. 2094). There are different ways of bullying, a boy is more physical when they start bullying, but girls often use social seclusion as a means of harassment. Bullying has been witnessed in the school and workplace from time immemorial. Bullying has taken a new routine in the recent with the introduction of social media, and it has expanded its target. Cyberbullying has been introduced through social media, and it is bullying done through internet and social media like through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Myspace, and Tumblr. Social media users send their friends or other social media users hurting messages that might be used as a way of exposing one’s privacy. There are some social media sites like Formspring, and Tumblr messages are sent anonymously whereby the user sender remains unknown. Bullying has become a hot topic in the schools and the workplace.