Understanding Cyber Bullying and Digital Harassment

Cyber bullying can have very destructive emotional and psychological effects on an individual. Cyber bullying involves a set of actions in which an individual or group of individuals use digital media to cause another person to suffer emotional distress or anxiety. In this modern world, everyone is linked with some kind of social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many others. Tim also had an account on Facebook, and he decided to upload one of his pictures. He was expecting to get many likes and nice comments, but a few people commented badly, which hurt his feelings. Then, he received some really mean messages commenting on his looks and personality. By that time, he was already losing confidence in himself and he was feeling bad about his physical appearance. The next day, he did not talk like he used to with his friends and family. He did not participate in class, and eventually, he started to avoid his friends. This had a great effect on his academic success. His parents were concerned about the changes he was showing in his habits recently, but they did not bother to talk to him about it. Tim’s condition was getting worse, and he needed someone to help him to get through this tough time.

There is nothing positive about harassing someone through social media by texting, sending message, and by commenting on the status or picture of an individual. In contrast, it is a very preposterous thing to do, which would have very devastating psychological and emotional effects. It must be prevented before it starts showing its effects on young teenagers who are more vulnerable to it. There may arise few questions how cyber bullying affects academic performance, which occurs outside school. However, the psychological effects can influence their performance and attentiveness in school. Psychological and emotional effects are the most damaging effects done by cyber bullying to an individual.

According to Seiler and Navarro, bullying behaviors are no longer isolated to school, but instead follow young people home and are visible to potentially hundreds of witnesses through the use of social technology. This specifically means that cyber bullying can have a negative influence in a wide range from school to home, which is mostly the daily routine of a teenager. Seiler and Navarro argue that the youths who are affected may experience emotions like anger, depression, embarrassment, and sadness, which, in turn can lead to other negative consequences (Seiler and Navarro). The bullying behaviors like insults, harassment, and public shaming can be highly lethal to the victim’s self-confidence. It can lead to other negative consequences like suicide, mental instability, and many others. People who are continuously bullied in social media are at high risk to commit suicide or experience anxiety.

Meanwhile, according to an article by Tom Laer, cyber bullying does not affect social network sites, but the emotional distress brought by the online aggression can also cause victims to take their own lives (Laer). This emphasizes that the victims are more likely to commit suicides because of the bullying. It also negatively affects the network sites and persons involved with those sites. The victims tend to harm themselves and they are linked with major depression. Also, in the United States alone, estimates indicate that more than half a million people age eighteen or older have been victims of cyber harassment (Laer). This statistic shows that the teenagers are more likely to be harassed in the social media. According to Common Sense Media, cyberbullying is especially prevalent in middle school-aged kids, nine to fourteen years (“Protecting Kids from Cyberbullying”).

When it comes to kids, they are more vulnerable to bullying. The middle school-aged kids are more likely to be bullied because it is their transition phase into becoming teens and they spend more time on social media. They can be on Internet sites they are not supposed to be on. When they become the victims, it will cause damage to them emotionally and on a psychological level. Their everyday routine and their habits will suddenly face a drastic change (Seiler and Navarro). Their self-esteem will be easily degraded, and they will lose the confidence they have towards themselves. If the bullying issues take the form of physical threats, or social threats, their sense of physical safety will also face a huge impact. It is highly probable that they may not want to go outside anymore because they feel that someone is going to attack them. If it is not a physical threat, but it is about comments some people made on their appearance, then they will still do the same because they are embarrassed by how they look. According to Common Sense Media, USA Today reports that girls generally mock others for their physical appearance, while boys tend to make more sexually explicit comments (“Protecting Kids from Bullying”). These kinds of trends lead to the immense negative effects on the child’s emotional level and their self-esteem begins to decline, day by day.

One effect of cyber bullying leads to other greater impacts, for example, in the academic progress of a student. The authors of the article 'Cyberbullying, School Bullying, And Psychological Distress: A Regional Census Of High School Students,' argue that cyber bullying is linked to negative school experiences, such as lower academic performance and negative perceptions of school climate (Seiler and Navarro). As mentioned earlier, cyber bullying occurs outside school and it may look like it will have no effects on the academic progress of a student. However, as a matter of fact, cyber bullying has few similar consequences as that of school bullying. With all the psychological and emotional damage, a student cannot focus on his studies. This will result in lower level of commitment to the school, which eventually leads to low academic performance. They will not be able to pay attention to the class and do their assignments regularly, which in turn affects their performance in school. Being bullied makes them look for answers about why they are being bullied. Since, they think about it all the time, it results in depression and anxiety. Their attention is driven towards the issue rather than the school activities. Hence, cyber bullying acts as a main contributing factor in affecting the student’s academic progress and it is very important to understand how negatively it affects their academic achievement. Risk factors are very helpful to identify who are the more vulnerable to the risk of being bullied in social media or in public.

There has been rapid progress in the field of technology, which led to the rise of different social media. According to Seiler and Navarro, a recent study suggests that eighty percent of teens use Facebook and an increasing number of teens use services such as Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram for interacting with friends. They tend to share more information about themselves on these social media. They also become easier prey for bullies looking for opportunities to bully. It is true that social media has its benefits of connecting with people in an easier and efficient way, but someone has to pay the costs of using it because they did not use it in a proper way.

Parents can find out if their children are being bullied or not by identifying the risk factors and the effects. Parents can take some actions to prevent their children from becoming a victim of cyber bullying. First of all, they can talk with their children if they notice anything unusual or suspicious going on with their children, for example, mood swings, anxious etc. According to Diamanduros and Downs, Common Sense Media gives some tips which include such items as appropriate online behavior, limiting online socialization, privacy issues such as password and identification information, and communication about cyber bullying (Diamanduros and Downs). Parents should limit and often check what websites their children are surfacing. They should teach their children about privacy, which includes changing their passwords and contact information if they find something suspicious.

Several states have rules regarding cyberbullying and holds school responsible for providing safe learning environment (Diamanduros and Downs). They would have to investigate the issues of cyberbullying and report if they suspect anything. This should apply both in school and out of school activities of bullying involving students. Meanwhile, involving parents and informing them about the bullying activities provides some relief to the parents who are concerned that their children are the victim of bullying activities. They will be happy to know that the school is also assisting and taking major responsibilities towards ending cyber bullying. To make this law effective, there has to be some kind of trainings for school officials and also for parents. Research suggest that best practices for bullying prevention and intervention includes training school personnel about the nature of bullying and its effects, how to respond if bullying is detected, and methods of reporting bullying accidents (Diamanduros and Downs). It is very important to train teachers at school and form a committee that deals with the problems associated with cyber bulling. This will definitely minimize the risk of students getting bullied in school as well as out of school. Cyber bullying has been accounted for failing grades, poor attendance and sometime suicides. However, these practices could provide better learning environments and also protect the students from cyber bulling, which eventually will increase attendances, and improve the grades of the students.

There should be other strict laws stating the limits on the things that are seen in the Internet. If there are any technologies that prevent publishing of bad Internet materials or contents, it must be used to regulate the social media. These preventive measures can really minimize the number of cases of cyber bullying involving students. Some of the network providers have been trying to introduce technologies that would stop users from harassing others in social media. According to an article, to combat cyber harassment in social media, network providers have experimented with varying success in monitoring technologies that enable detection and discontinuation of cyber harassment, such as Facebook’s report systems and evaluation tools (Laer). With these tools, anyone will be able to report harassment to the network provider and they can take actions to put an end to it. Network providers have a variety of monitoring technologies at their hands, so they can easily get involved in social networks to fight against cyber harassment. It is essential for the users to report if they are the victim of the harassment whether in public or private to get justice, and to avoid from getting bullied again.

In conclusion, cyber bullying is one of the most prevailing issues that are affecting the teens in broad aspects. By understanding the grave impacts, it has on the emotional level as well as in academic performance of youths, it will be easier for parents and the educators to deal with the issues of cyberbullying. As mentioned earlier, it is very essential to have parental supervision in regard to how their children are using the technology and the social media. Parents and the schools must coordinate and help each other out in addressing the issues of cyber bullying. This will help every student and schools to create safer learning environment with which comes the academic progress of the students. Therefore, in order to avoid the devastating effects of cyber bullying in teens, and to secure the learning environment of children, everyone should have a role and be responsible for their actions.