Traditional Bullying Vs Cyberbullying

In 2014, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) did a study on bullying and the found that 19.4% of all the students interviewed had been bullied at school. This may not seem very surprising, bullying has been going on for decades. Generations of men and women have come to fear the people who walk the halls, stealing lunch money from those weaker than them. However, it is interesting to note that 14.8% of that 19.4% had reported being cyber bullied. Unlike the standard physical bullying, cyberbullying is a slightly more recent development, but it has evolved to become much more deadly. It gives bullies a better tool for creating more widespread pain. The awareness for cyber bullying needs to increase and ultimately, cyberbullying needs to be abolished completely due to its destructive capabilities.

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.

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.

Bullying can be found almost everywhere; in homes, on the internet, and especially in schools. Students of lesser abilities or non-conformists can essentially be main targets; however, anyone is vulnerable to a bully’s wrath. Although the common lunch thief threat has been the general association with the word bully, that term has unfortunately evolved and become apart of the violent side of our culture today. All too often students feel the need to “disappear” or escape leading to destructive decisions such as suicide, substance abuse, or depression (Kowalski 6). Today the causes of bullying are involved with social differences such as sexual orientation, physical appearance, ethnicity, or insecurities. For the past few years bullying has gradually increased in the US, and of course worldwide because of the internet’s growing diverse locations and servers. Statistics show that “A total of 29.9% of the sample reported moderate or frequent involvement in bullying, as a bully (13.3%), one who was bullied (10.6%), or both (6.3%)” (NIH Public Access). Forms of bullying include through a computer screen also known as cyberbullying and through physical confrontation leading students to experience symptoms of depression which could also provoke deeper personal issues. Cyberbullying has come across society through social media sites as well as personal opinion. Children are now breaking the norm of traditional confrontation and dunking heads in toilets

Bullying is a major problem that impacts many teens over generations, causing an endless cycle of bullying. With the new age of technology, this leads to new issues that are affecting teens’ lives. One of these issues is that cyberbullying is quickly becoming more common than the traditional playground bullying, as more social media are appealing to teens. Cyberbullying is a type of bullying that happens using electronic devices such as phones, laptops, and tablets. This form of bullying includes spreading rumours, sending mean and hurtful messages and sharing embarrassing videos or photos. Cyberbullying over social media has become extremely easy for bullies to victimize other teenagers affecting the victim’s mental health. Therefore,

Given that cyberbullying is a relatively new construct, it is important to note that there are still definitional and methodological inconsistencies throughout the literature (Nixon, 2014). Although fairly new, the research that has been conducted has shown that this form of bullying has been growing rapidly, and has led to a myriad of mental health issues for students who have been subjected to it. Researchers have been trying to narrow down cyberbullying in order to properly quantify it, and measure it

Emotional distress is probably the biggest difference between cyberbullying and traditional bullying. Cyberbullying is a very serious matter. Journal of School Health Association Stassen, Berger noted, “almost every student is threatened occasionally. Consequently, most of the victims will find protective strategies who suffer from anxious, aggression, or irritation. Accordingly, this may cause teenagers to become victims” (647). The emotional effect of cyber bullies to their victims has increased the risk of depression, social isolation, and obesity. Moreover, the victims become powerless with daily harassment online with no control, they have suicidal thoughts. Although, traditional bullying have a similar serious impact of emotional distress.

Contrary to this general misconception, cyberbullying has the potential to be more dangerous than traditional bullying because the aggressor has the ability to be anonymous and can harass the victim 24/7 every day of the week. Scientific research examining the consequences of cyberbullying helped establish it as a social problem by linking it to emotional and mental health conditions. The rapid spread of cyberbullying-related media over the Internet has raised awareness on its possible hazards and helps justify cyberbullying as a social problem. Cases and rulings related to cyberbullying helped it become recognized as a social problem by framing it as an issue deserving of legal consideration and leading to laws passed to prevent cyberbullying. Over the recent decades, the findings of scientific research, advances in communication technology, and litigation on cyberbullying have contributed to the construction of cyberbullying as a social

In the United States, 23% of teens, in a study, reported being targeted by cyberbullying (Pappas). Once someone is singled out by a bully, different peers will know that the person is a target, and they will join in the bullying against that particular child. The number of adolescents being directly affected by cyberbullying has grown everyday. As more adolescents get involved with technology, unfortunately more of them have felt the need to get involved with other peers in a negative manner. Without finding a root cause to stop it, children and teens can be affected by serious and sometimes fatal mental health illnesses. According to a study, more than 15% of children said that they were either being cyber bullied or they were the target of some aspect of cyberbullying. (Ockerman, Kramer, and Bruno). As a result, whether children are bullying or being bullied, the numbers are increasing. This has the possibility to dig America in another hole that it does not need to be in, with adolescents being horribly affected every day. Cyberbullying worsens the mental health of children ages 12-18 in the United States. Online abuse worsens the mental health of adolescents by increasing

Administrators and school teachers have been dealing with bullying for decades. Bullying is known as a repeated aggressive behavior where one person or a group of people, abuse an individual with the intention to hurt that person physically or emotionally. Behaviors of bullying can be physical or verbal. This type of behavior, also called traditional bullying or “school yard bullying,” refers to the physical, verbal, or social abuse of an individual. Cyber-bullying is also referred to as electronic bullying or online social cruelty through instant messaging, email, chat room conversations, via websites or gaming sites, and through text messages or images sent through cellular devices. This essay will discuss the similarities and differences

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

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.

Ortega, et al., (2012) found that bullying victims all have their own emotional responses when they experience cyberbullying. Most of the time, victims felt angry; however, some were not bothered at all. Less common outcomes that victims report after being cyberbullied include feeling ashamed and endangered (Ortega, et al., 2012). In other words, victims who are cyberbullied have more control over their feelings about the situation than those who have been bullied in person. This can result in victims having difficulties with coping strategies because they are not used to a cyberbullying environment (Ortega, et al., 2012). Since cyberbullying can happen to anyone who has access to technology and without the need for face to face interaction, victims can more easily hide their feelings from the aggressor. However, victims who are not bothered by being cyberbullied could be in trouble too. Ortega, et al., (2012) states that the reason why victims choose to ignore is possible because of the victims’ lack of awareness, seeing cyberbullying as a lesser danger than traditional bullying. As stated before, some cyberbullying behaviours are less harmful than others. It is also easier to ignore cyberbullying than traditional bullying. During a face-to-face interaction with a bully, the emotions on the victim’s face can be seen clearly and it is harder to ignore that. The emotional response of victims of traditional bullying could easily be altered since they can read the intentions of