CYBER BULLING

                                               CYBER BULLYING

INTRODUCTION :

Cyber bulling can be a very serious issue that should not taken lightly, and it is important to be aware of the warning signs. Teachers can play a key role in helping to prevent cyber bullying, and they can also provide support to students who are affected by it. It can cause long-term damage to victims, and it's important to take steps to prevent it from happening.

Cyber Bullying can have a devasting effect on victims, both mentally and emotionally. If you are being cyber bullied, please seek help from a trusted adult. There is no shame in getting help, you are not alone.

Cyberbullying definition :

Cyber Bullying has been defined as intentional harmful behavior carried out by a group or individuals, repeated over time, using modern digital technology to aggress against a victim who is unable to defend him/herself (Juvonen & Gross, 2008; Konig, Gollwitzer, & Steffgen, 2010; Smith et al., 2008). Smith, del Barrio, and Tokunaga (2013) add that the aggressor is more powerful in some way than the target. This definition parallels the definition of traditional bullying, essentially adding “digital technology” as the mechanism by which the harm is inflicted.

In addition to the traditional criteria of intention, repetition, and power imbalance, some researchers have suggested that “anonymity” and “publicity” are additional features that define cyber bullying  (Nocentini et al., 2010). For example, Sticca and Perren (2013) found that middle-school children rated public and anonymous cyberbullying as worse than incidents that were private or when the perpetrator was known. While we know these features are important, we disagree with making these qualities defining attributes because anonymity, while definetly easier to accomplish when cyberbullying, is not always the case, and cyberbullies can use private as well as public channels. However, it is important to keep in mind that other unique features of the digital environment may increase risks for cyberbullying. These are: the huge size of the potential audience; the continuous access; the permanence of online content; the ease of copying material and distributing it widely; and the lack of oversight of online behavior. In addition, the inability to view the emotional reactions of the target keeps perpetrators from having empathy for the target. The advent of sexting—sending explicit images or text using digital channels—has created a particularly dangerous opportunity for perpetrators to take images intended for an intimate relationship and broadcast them (without the knowledge or the consent of the target) in order  to humiliate the target and damage his/her social relationships.

Historically, cyberbullying was first noticed late last century. Bill Belsey, a Canadian, is widely credited with coining the term cyberbullying on his website, although the earliest use was actually  in 1995 in a New York Times article (Bauman, 2011). Although there is still some debate about the definition and whether it is the best term to use to describe the behaviors of interest (cf. Bauman, Underwood, & Card, 2013), the term is so widely accepted in both scholarly and public contexts that we continue to use it here. Since the term is an extension of the term “bullying,” we include a discussion of that definition next.

 Methods of Cyberbullying :

Text messaging – writing mean, abusive or threatening comments to someone

Social Network Bullying – posting cruel messages on sites like Facebook or creating false profiles or group about someone

Email and Instant Messaging bullying – sending nasty or threatening emails or instant messages

Sharing images – publishing or sharing photos, videos or webcam footage of someone without their permission

Chatroom bullying – saying mean, threatening or offensive things about others in online chatrooms 

Interactive Game bullying – deliberate blocking, ignoring or excluding an individual from multi-player games

Examples of Cyberbullying :

Here are some examples of ways cyberbullies pretend to be the person they are targeting.

Harassment

Harassing someone is a common method of online bullying.

• Participating in text wars or text attacks, which occur when bullies gang up on the victim and send thousands of texts.
• Posting rumors, threats, or embarrassing information on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Impersonation

     

• Change the target’s online profile to include sexual, racist, or other inappropriate things.
• Develop a screen name that is similar to the victim’s screen name and then post rude or hurtful remarks while pretending to be the victim.

Inappropriate Photographs

Here’s a closer look at how cyberbullies may use photos and images to cyberbully others.

• Posting nude pictures on photo sharing sites for anyone on the internet to view and download.
• Sending mass emails or text messages that include nude or degrading photos of the victim.

Video Shaming

The use of videos may be used for online bullying. These short clips are often extremely hurtful to the people being targeted.

• Downloading a video of something humiliating and posting it to YouTube in order to allow a larger audience to view the incident.
• Sharing a video via mass e-mail or text messaging to humiliate and embarrass the victim.

Preventing Cyberbullying

When it comes to preventing cyberbullying, it’s important that you not only help your child implement some safety measures, but that you also have an ongoing dialogue about how to use social media safely. It’s also important to talk about the risks of cyberbullying and what to do if they are bullied online. Here are some ways that you can help prevent cyberbullying in your child’s life.

1. Listen, reassure and support them. Give them your full emotional support
2. Ask them not to reply – they are then making an active choice not to feed power to the bully
3. Keep the evidence – make a written record of what’s happened
4. Block the bullies – use the tools available according to where/how the messages are received. This may mean deleting from a ‘friends’ list
5. Don’t deny access to technology – in other words ban. This is a major reason why children are afraid to tell their parent and carers they are being bullied. Moderate your child’s use instead.
6. Perform a social media audit – Every few months, sit down with your child and go through their social media accounts. Talk about what should be deleted from their account because of the potential ways in which the posts could be misconstrued. Encourage your child to log out of social apps for kids and email when on public computers.

Conclusion :

      

Cyberbulling is a problem in societies that are advanced enough to have the technology to connect with other people online and is not easily fixable.  Cyberbullying can affect anyone but is most prominent in today’s youth.  If we can curve out this awful behavior early in their age, they are unlikely to continue down that path.   Unfortunately this is not an easy task.  This will require schools, and especially parents to be aware of the problem and act on it.  Eliminating cyberbullying will take a combined effort and wont be eliminated over night.  If the government is willing to accept that cyberbullying is a problem, laws can be put in place to help discourage this activity.  Even still, parents and schools should eliminate and stop this behavior now, then laws shouldn’t be necessary.  So schools and parents, be aware of what kids are doing on the internet and their phones, and act if they are doing something that they shouldn’t be.