Overview of the Causes and Effects of Cyber Bullying

This paper will talk about the causes and effects of cyber-bullying, but first I will define the term. Cyber-bullying is often done by children who have increasingly early access to these technologies. The problem is compounded by the fact that a bully can hid behind these user names, disguising his or her user name. This secrecy makes it difficult to trace the source and encourages bullies to behave more aggressively than they might in a situation where they were identified. Cyberbullying can include such acts as making threats, sending proactive insults, gay bashing and racial or ethnic slurs.

The effects of bullying and cyber bullying in today’s society have grave consequences that can lead to the untimely deaths of many children throughout the nation. In the past there have been numerous incidents involving teenagers shooting up schools and most recently children taking their own lives because they were tortured, teased in school, and made fun of online in their very own homes. What is a bully and what can we do to prevent our children from harming themselves and others because of these so called mean girls and boys? Cyberbullying is the use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature.

Cyber-bullying has been linked to multiple maladaptive emotional, psychological, and behavioral outcomes. The physical and mental effects of cyberbullying vary depending on the victim, but the consequences include: low self-esteem, anxiety, feeling sad and being scared just to name a few. Children who are often cyber-bullied tends to struggle academically also. What are the effects and outcomes of being bullied in school and online? According to the National Center for Education Statistics, one out of five students is being bullied in school and in the community. Only 36% of these children reported bullying. With the onset of social media, bullying has gone digital. Children now bully other children through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms. Based on the study of Patchin & Hinduja (2016), 34% of students’ experience cyberbullying. Here are some harmful effects of cyber-bullying in the online world:

• Humiliation: Because cyberbullying takes place in the cyberspace, children who are being bullied are feeling humiliated in the online world. Usually, the bully posts nasty photos, texts, or messages that can be permanent in the digital platform. The victim may be exposed and may encourage others to increase the humiliation. Social platforms are there for the use of everyone and when these cyber-bullies post bad things about other children this stigma or negative message will stay with them for a period of time especially within the school.
• Anger and Vengeance: The victims may be angry to the cyberbullies. With this, there is a huge tendency that they will hit back the cyberbullies in the cyberspace by commenting or posting nasty photos as well. Cyberbullying creates a boomerang effect in which the victim will copy the action as a form of revenge.
• Violence: It may also resort to violence in which the victim may resort to hurting the cyberbully in person. There are many instances in which victims are reported to have attacked their bullies because of cyberbullying. Often time we hear on the news where children would go back into schools or homes and participate in shooting. Sometimes if noticed, these same students go in to shoot and kill a specific person and when investigated the persons who they have killed are persons who have bullied or hurt them over a period of time.
• Depression: If they cannot tolerate the bullying, they will become stressed which will, later on, develop to depression. Depression is still the leading cause of suicide in the world.

Cyber-bullying has been around for some time now but somehow has just been addressed by many. There’s a common misconception that it’s only children that suffer from cyberbullying. Of course, the issue does affect them. It’s made worse by how hard it is for parents to keep up with what their children are doing online. But cyberbullying is an issue that can affect anyone and does affect people of any age from all over the world. It is important to identify the platforms that enable cyberbullies to thrive. What causes these cyberbullies to do what they do is because the feel the victim deserves it.

This is because of insecurities which is a major factor of bullying and students often try to their peers down to feel superior. This can go for adults also, it is common for people to try and discredit one another. Boredom is another cause of cyber-bullying. When people are bored they will go the extra mile to find something to do and that’s how cyberbullying comes in at times. It is very easy to log in to facebook for example to receive and reply to messages and very hard to ignore. Lack of empathy can be a cause too. Technology enables people to distance themselves from a situation even while they are in it. Cyberbullies cannot see the pain they cause and thus cannot imagine the turmoil they put their victims through. In fact, many cyberbullies who were ousted and questioned after the fact said that the act made them feel funny and powerful.

Fighting cyberbullying will take hard work and a mind-shift in society at large. However, it’s essential to start the fight against toxic online behavior now before it keeps escalating. Technology is a big part of everyday life and cyberbullying shouldn’t become a regular part of it. Each one can help one in fact, mange your time and what you do online wisely.