Prevalence of Cyber Bullying

Bullying has always been a huge problem for the society. The heinous act of bullying has taken a new form with the advancements that technology has made. This has given bullying a new dimension by enabling the attackers to utilize the technology and electronic media to carry out their act of bullying. Cyber Bullying is very different from the traditional ways of bullying (Martínez et al. 2018). In the latest times where the cyberworld has interconnected the entire world, Cyber Bullying has received enormous media attention, including social, academic as well as political views. The following essay would focus on this issue where the latest technological advancements have made Cyber Bullying a notoriously spread problem, but it is to be justified that if this has surpassed the problems that arise with the traditional forms of bullying as well or not. The essay will shed light on the issues regarding Cyber Bullying and also the other traditional forms of bullying to attain a feasible comparison between these two aspects.

There have been several studies that focus on the fact that ways by which youth is nowadays bullied online, is far more different than the way they were treated in the hands of a bully in a traditional way. The psychological thinking of a bully is identified to be really immature when it comes to posting mean things about a person (Schultze-Krumbholz et al. 2015). They mostly take it as a heartfelt joke and find pleasure in sharing their piece of mind with the others. Only a person on the receiving end has the idea that the process of bullying is not at all a threat. The repetitive nature of the bullying can even cross the line and reach a level where the spread of the ‘joke’ multiplies in number with the use of latest technologies, eventually reaching the phase of Cyber Bullying.

Cyber Bullying has been identified as a very common risk experienced online which has a nature of peer to peer transformation. In the latest era, it has been found by various sources that Cyber Bullying has reached such a huge level that it has nowadays become more common than the traditional ways of bullying a person (Waasdorp and Bradshaw 2015). According to a survey, almost 20 to 30 per cent of the current youth have been exposed to Cyber Bullying, whereas amongst these people, only 12 to 14 per cent are susceptible to traditional ways of bullying (DeSmet et al. 2018). Another research has found that out of all the incidences where bullying takes place over the internet, 95 per cent have been out of sheer joke and the rest 5 per cent is identified to actually harm someone. Therefore, this causes a severe doubt in whether or not Cyber Bullying is al at different or severe from that of the traditional ways of bullying.

Some literature argue the fact that Cyber Bullying forms the subset of the traditional set of bullying.  While the traditional bullying had several ways of being forgotten, Cyber Bullying and its effects are ever lasting. This is because Cyber Bullying takes place via the use of internet, where information shared stays forever and never diminishes (Slonje, Smith and Frisén 2017). On the other hand the traditional ways by which the act of bullying used to take place or takes place even now is forgettable after a point of time. There have been incidences where the act of bullying had suddenly emerged after being completely forgotten, affecting the lives of many people involved with the bullying.

Prevalence of Traditional Bullying

Bullying can be the reason of intense psychological harm; be it of any form. Children tend to be lower on levels of self-esteem under the influence of bullying. Victims of bullying tend to have intense depressive tendencies (Hase et al. 2015). A severe struggle with concentration and learning in the classroom are found in bully victims. Furthermore, if the bullying instances are found to be much more severe, it can even effect the victims with severe psychological challenges for many years. At the worst end of the spectrum, bullying has even coerced people to take their own life than living with the horrific memory of the bullying incident.

The incidences of bullying solely depend on the variant of age. Researchers have distinguished those bullying reports that have been declined between the children of about the ages of 8 and 16 years, consistent between various other countries. The incidences of bullying seems to rise more between the ages of 11 to 13 (Tanrikulu and Campbell 2015). However, these are not the state of affairs that bullying can occur as it cannot be said that the act of bullying never takes place beyond this age group. Increasing amounts of incidences have been noticed in the recent time in workplaces as well. While bullying is mostly experienced as a common phenomenon in the children, Cyber Bullying has no age limit. It can go beyond the limits of childish bullying practices (Myers et al. 2017). The reports have also noticed that the traditional ways of bullying have been mostly taken place amongst the male and the adult minds of Cyber Bullying mostly targets the females in the society. Bullying among children, and bullying incidents where they have been bullied by adults, both do not go through the same pain as the children do not have an idea of reputation being at stake. In case of the young adults and the adults, reputation forms a greater issue.

Cyber Bullying is a complex area where identity theft and fake profile of users spread all around the world in social media does not make it clear whether the people using the systematic abuse of power are from a particular gender or belong to a particular age group (Modecki et al. 2014). In both the cases for Cyber Bullying or traditional bullying, the main intention behind the heinous act is to hurt other people, either morally or by ruining their reputation. Since it is much difficult to find the identity of an attacker through Cyber Bullying, it becomes a more dangerous act. Children on the internet can also be cyber bullied by adults (Pabian and Vandebosch 2016). Although there are some authors who disagree to the fact that Cyber Bullying is a materially different form of Cyber Bullying, they suggest that there is a need for increased public policy approach. Intuitive merit resides in this argument. However, this fact can be criticized on a number of grounds. First, these claims hardly find any support in the experimental works on the consequences and destruction of Cyber Bullying. Secondly, it cannot be said clearly if the online bullying or cyber bullying occurrences are more sinister than school ground bullying. If it is recognized that Cyber Bullying is exceptionally detrimental and it does not follow that there is an approach in the public policy that would have the potential to effectively tackle the harm.

Comparing the Psychological Impact of Cyber Bullying and Traditional Bullying

However, during this entire topic of comparing the traditional form of bullying and Cyber Bullying, it needs to be kept in mind that both of these are harmful to people and both of them co-exist. This means that a student, who may be exposed to bullying at school, may even be bullied in the world of internet (Thomas, Connor and Scott 2015). The only difference would be that the student would easily see the people attacking him or her at school but he or she would not be able to identify the attacker behind a computer screen. Studies have also found that people who are most likely to be Cyber Bullied, have gone through the same in school, experiencing traditional methods of bullying (Chaux et al. 2016). This co-occurrence of Cyber Bullying and bullying has consequence for the technique we comprehend the Cyber Bullying problem. It emphasizes that the Cyber Bullying difficulty is a division of the bullying predicament in general. To make sure that Cyber Bullying ceases to exist, the foundation should be set right from the inception where a student at a very young age has the idea of bullying his or classmate.

Conclusion

Thus, the essay can be concluded by focusing on the fact that Cyber Bullying may have been a subset of the traditional set of bullying, it is a more severe form that can even scar a person for life. The studies have found that mostly these attacks online target the female internet users by various methods. Mostly these attacks are carried out by phishing, identity theft and other forms of bullying online. Even the children online are not safe from the garbs of Cyber Bullying. Thus, the essay has found out that Cyber Bullying is much worse than that of the traditional methods of bullying. The following essay had focused on this issue where the latest technological advancements have made Cyber Bullying a notoriously spread problem, but it is to be justified that if this has surpassed the problems that arise with the traditional forms of bullying as well or not. The essay has thus shed light on the issues regarding Cyber Bullying and also the other traditional forms of bullying to attain a feasible comparison between these two aspects.

References

Chaux, E., Velásquez, A.M., Schultze?Krumbholz, A. and Scheithauer, H., 2016. Effects of the cyberbullying prevention program media heroes (Medienhelden) on traditional bullying. Aggressive behavior, 42(2), pp.157-165.

DeSmet, A., Rodelli, M., Walrave, M., Soenens, B., Cardon, G. and De Bourdeaudhuij, I., 2018. Cyberbullying and traditional bullying involvement among heterosexual and non-heterosexual adolescents, and their associations with age and gender. Computers in Human Behavior, 83, pp.254-261.

Hase, C.N., Goldberg, S.B., Smith, D., Stuck, A. and Campain, J., 2015. Impacts of traditional bullying and cyberbullying on the mental health of middle school and high school students. Psychology in the Schools, 52(6), pp.607-617.

Martínez, I., Murgui, S., Garcia, O.F. and Garcia, F., 2018. Parenting in the Digital Era: Protective and Risk Parenting Styles for Traditional Bullying and Cyberbullying Victimization. Computers in Human Behavior.

Modecki, K.L., Minchin, J., Harbaugh, A.G., Guerra, N.G. and Runions, K.C., 2014. Bullying prevalence across contexts: A meta-analysis measuring cyber and traditional bullying. Journal of Adolescent Health, 55(5), pp.602-611.

Myers, Z.R., Swearer, S.M., Martin, M.J. and Palacios, R., 2017. Cyberbullying and Traditional Bullying: The Experiences of Poly-Victimization Among Diverse Youth. International Journal of Technoethics (IJT), 8(2), pp.42-60.

Pabian, S. and Vandebosch, H., 2016. An investigation of short-term longitudinal associations between social anxiety and victimization and perpetration of traditional bullying and cyberbullying. Journal of youth and adolescence, 45(2), pp.328-339.

Schultze-Krumbholz, A., Göbel, K., Scheithauer, H., Brighi, A., Guarini, A., Tsorbatzoudis, H., Barkoukis, V., Py?alski, J., Plichta, P., Del Rey, R. and Casas, J.A., 2015. A comparison of classification approaches for cyberbullying and traditional bullying using data from six European countries. Journal of School Violence, 14(1), pp.47-65.

Slonje, R., Smith, P.K. and Frisén, A., 2017. Perceived reasons for the negative impact of cyberbullying and traditional bullying. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 14(3), pp.295-310.

Tanrikulu, I. and Campbell, M., 2015. Correlates of traditional bullying and cyberbullying perpetration among Australian students. Children and youth services review, 55, pp.138-146.

Thomas, H.J., Connor, J.P. and Scott, J.G., 2015. Integrating traditional bullying and cyberbullying: challenges of definition and measurement in adolescents–a review. Educational Psychology Review, 27(1), pp.135-152.

Waasdorp, T.E. and Bradshaw, C.P., 2015. The overlap between cyberbullying and traditional bullying. Journal of Adolescent Health, 56(5), pp.483-488.