I chose to research and write about cyber bullying. Through my research, I learned more about who is affected and how people are affected.
Cyber Bullying
Since the rise in technology and social media use in the
past couple of years, there is no doubt that the use of these devices and
platforms has greatly influenced the way we interact with people around us.
Social media is a powerful tool that could be used to promote both positive and
negative things. The biggest negative outcome that has formed through social
media use is cyber bullying. Cyber bullying has affected millions of people and
has grown out of control in recent years. There have been efforts to try to
control the amount of cyber bullying that happens, but I believe that there are
better ways to go about it. Cyber bullying has spread like an uncontrollable
wild fire and people can't find how to stop it from occurring. The best way to
stop cyber bullying is to raise awareness through campaigns and advertisements
to make society aware of who, how, and when people are affected.
The Internet can be a cruel and unforgiving place for people
that have been bullied online. The first major example of online harassment and
cyber bullying happened to be in the late 1990s. Monica Lewinsky was recently
featured on a TED talk and talked about how her mistakes where blown up by the
internet stating, “this was not something that happened regularly back in 1998,
the stealing of someone's private words, comments, and conversations and making
them public. Public without consent and context” (Lewinsky). Lewinsky was
talking about her life experience. She was explaining the mistake she made by
falling in love with the president of the United States and having her mistake
made public on the internet, television, and news. She was completely shamed
publicly and had no way of escaping her reality. Cyber bullying was not a
well-known issue when it happened to Lewinsky.
Lewinsky was devastated and didn’t know what to do or how to
handle all of this negative attention. She would receive death threats,
shaming, and a lot of horrible comments. Sometimes Cyber bullying seems to be a
force that can't be stopped. A force that can bring deadly consequences. People
need to understand that it's not just about calling people out or using profane
words against people. Society tends to forget that they are talking to a
person, someone with feelings and emotions just like them. The consequences can
be catastrophic. Raising awareness for the effects of cyber bullying would
change the way society would interact with people online. People would come to
realize that things that happen online effect someone just as much as things
that happen in person.
With raising awareness against cyber bullying comes concerns
about how the issue is addressed. Many people are scared to address the topic
on a national scale because they are afraid of violating freedom of
speech. Some people believe that the
best way to control cyber bullying is to monitor and control what people are
allowed to post, say, and see on the Internet. This would be an extreme way of
trying to stop cyber bullying and I believe that it's not the correct way to
stop it. Instead of viewing the internet as a problem, we should focus on using
the internet to spread the effects of cyber bullying. The key to stopping cyber
bullying is to make everyone aware of its effects. To show people that it’s a
horrible thing to go through. Cyber bullying is real, and it has taken the
lives of many people. Everyone who uses the internet can be affected by it
especially young adults.
A study conducted by child family studies did some research
on the negative effects of cyber bullying as well as studying what factors lead
to bully behavior states, “a number of practices could be launched in order to
actively support parents and schools in their role to prevent the manifestation
of cyber bullying”. (cf. Kaplan and Assor 2012). This article states that
change starts where the problem begins which is at school. There would be
workshops and school events focusing on the effects of bullying, not only
online but in real life. The article also states, “regarding the effects of online bullying, or the
provision of immediate information about the dehumanizing consequences of
bullying or cyberbullying in school, in order to foster empathy in a
non-controlling way” (cf. Kaplan and Assor 2012). This would prove to be the
most efficient way to go about a sensitive topic. Kids need to understand that
actions have consequences even if it does seem that way. Words are very
powerful, and they have a huge effect on people even if they are said online.
Sometimes
it's hard to notice the effects of cyber bullying. Cyber bullying flies under
the radar most of the time and it's hard to notice when someone is being
bullied. Not being able to notice the effects of internet bullying makes it
very difficult to help someone in need. There are so many things that could be
done to help people who are going through any kind of bullying, but we need to
be able to identify the effects first. I believe that the first step to acceptance
is understanding. If people understood the effects of bullying, then they would
realize that it shouldn’t be acceptable. Raising awareness will teach people
how to help someone who is being bullied, as well as, how to prevent it for,
happening again.
Cyber
bullying is an activity that occurs behind the scenes and that is a major
reason as to why society overlooks it. It effects every aspect of your life
without you even noticing. It starts on the internet, but it slowly starts
making itself very present in school, work, with friends, everywhere. Before
you now it everyone knows a secret about you, or everyone has seen a picture of
you, etc. The scary part about it is people do it for different reasons and
sometimes don’t even know that they are participating in cyber bullying. “In a recent online pilot study, young people
who engage in cyberbullying behavior reported the following reasons for their
actions: posting without thinking they could hurt anyone (72%), to get back at
someone (58%), the target deserved it (58%), for fun or entertainment (28%), to
embarrass the target (21%), to be mean (14%), to show off to friends (11%) and
other reasons (16%)” (Cole).
The
most concerning part of these statistics is that some people don’t even know
that they are participating in cyber bullying. Some people just think that they
are commenting a joke on someone's post, but it's much more than that. The
study shows that 72% of people participated in cyber bullying without ever
thinking that they hurt someone. The majority of people that took part in this
study, where not aware of their hurtful actions and didn’t have the intention
of hurting someone. I think that this is a huge wake up call for society. We
are not doing our job in taking care of our communities, kids, friends, family,
etc. We need to change that statistic by making people aware that there is a
very fine line between joking around and bullying. It's not possible to fix or
correct something if you don’t acknowledge that there is something wrong first.
If people don’t know that they are taking part in bullying, then how are they
supposed to stop? That is why we need to raise awareness and teach people the
difference in joking and bullying and how that can affect someone's life.
Like
Monica Lewinsky, there have been many people whose lives have been changed
because of cyber bullying. Lewinsky was affected so much by her situation that
she started raising awareness for future generations that will have to deal
with online bullying. I believe that the best way to address cyber bullying is
through raising awareness. Once society starts to see how it affects people,
they will start to understand that there needs to be something done to stop it.
Its thorough understanding and hard work that the cyber bullying epidemic will
start to change. Once we manage to stop cyber bullying through campaigns,
advertisements, and exposure to the topic, we will start to see the positive
effects it will have in the lives of our friends, schools, jobs, community, and
our lives.
Works Cited
Cole, David A., et al. “Longitudinal and Incremental Relation of
Cybervictimization to Negative Self-Cognitions and Depressive Symptoms in Young
Adolescents.” Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, vol. 44, no. 7, Aug.
2016, pp. 1321–1332., doi:10.1007/s10802-015-0123-7. Accessed on Oct. 29, 2018
“Cyberbullying.” National Bullying Prevention Center,
National Bullying Prevention Center, 2018, www.pacer.org/bullying/resources/cyberbullying/.
Accessed on Oct. 28, 2019
Etzioni, Amitai. “Liberal Communitarian Approach to Privacy and
Security.” Privacy in a Cyber Age, 2015, pp. 101–112.,
doi:10.1057/9781137513960_7. Accessed on Oct. 29, 2018
Lewinsky, Monica. “The Price of Shame.” Ted.com, Ted.com,
Mar. 2015, www.ted.com/talks/monica_lewinsky_the_price_of_shame.
Acessed on Oct. 29, 2018
“PreventCyberbullying.” StopBullying.gov, www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/prevention/index.htmlAssessed
on Nov. 3, 2018
White, Martha C. “How Do You Stop Bullying? Advertisers Try to
Help.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Oct. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/29/business/media/monica-lewinsky-bullying-ad.html?rref=collection/timestopic/Cyberbullying&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=collection.
Accessed on Oct. 28, 2018.
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