Cyberbullying

Before he invention of the invention of the internet, bullying was much more personal. It was easier to confront the nerdy kid at school when teachers weren't around than it was to come for them outside of school, or leave them physical evidence of your misdeeds. This also made it somewhat possible to "escape" a bully as well. Even if a kid was being chased home because of their bully, they had the refuge of home and parents to fall back on. 

Nowadays, the bullying game has been stepped up. Not only are kids being picked on at school, but technology is now being used to cyberbully. An offshoot of bullying, cyberbullying is any kind of coercion/abuse/aggression that takes place through technology (email, chat, social media, text, etc.). Although it might be easier to track who is sending hurtful messages, it is also much easier to be anonymous on the internet. Kids are able to create throwaway accounts through which they can express whatever they want, as long as they delete the account before they get caught. The problem with being able to be completely anonymous is that children can say practically anything they want with no foreseeable consequences. These kinds of throwaway accounts are usually called burn pages and they're usually school-specific. These are pages where children, usually middle and highschoolers, ruthlessly attack and ridicule other kids in their school. So what are the effects of internet bullying? How do we predict it? What can we do to change it?

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One such article named "Prevalence and Predictors of Internet Bullying" looks at the likelihood of elementary, middle, and highschoolers to be bullied based on the prevalence of their in person bullying (Williams & Guerra, 2007). The article found that physical bullying, which was less likely to extend into highschool, was much less likely to be correlated with internet bullying than verbal bullying was. Verbal bullying, which continued into highschool more often than physical bullying did, was more likely to be correlated with internet bullying. Most bullying behaviors peaked in middle school, but it's more than apparent that bullying is something that goes on through highschool as well. The results found that boys were more likely to report physical bullying than girls were, but neither gender was more likely to report bullying. Adolescents were more likely to report indirect verbal or internet bullying than physical bullying, and many times their reports were anecdotal. According to dosomething.org 70% of kids have seen a classmate or friend be bullied online, but 90% of bullied teens don't report it. 43% of teens have been cyber bulled, with 25% having it happen on multiple occasions. So why do we ignore this, is it because we can't see it?

This kind of bullying affects development because not only is it easier, but cyberbullying is widespread. The first article I cited was done in 2007 BEFORE cellphone use was widely popularized (the article excluded all texting and cellphone based bullying). Bullying victims are up to 9 times more likely to commit suicide, so this should be something addressed as a public health issue. In some cases, schools have become involved in shutting down cyberbullying. In Charlotte, N.C. a law has passed to make cyberbullying illegal, but many times the cases fall through the cracks. Because the internet is a relatively new phenomenon and legislation takes years and even decades to pass, many times there aren't laws that specifically protect students from the mental anguish of online bullying. Well, why don't students just turn off their computers or delete their social media accounts? Nowadays as you move further up the educational scale, it becomes nearly impossible to operate without internet access. As a college student, ALL of my work is done online. I rarely carry paper and pencil with me, substituting it instead with my light and portable laptop. Increasingly schools are starting to get iPads and laptops that students are supposed to take home with them in order to complete their homework. And as far as deleting social media, it would be impossible to have a digital footprint anywhere if one deleted all of their online email, gaming, social media, and video streaming accounts. Even if they did delete their accounts, the slanderous photos of these kids still exist and are present online for anyone to find, with the bullying extending to school. If you were being bullied online and then had to go see all the people who you knew had been laughing at you and spreading rumors, that could seriously affect your mental health. 

So we need to find a way to reduce this impairment in child development. In some contexts, online discussion boards have been a good place for children to seek help (ironic, right?) As we saw in some of the earlier posts, internet connections with people that have had similar problems can be a comforting and unifying experience. It is slowly becoming the job of law enforcement, schools, and parents to put an end to internet bullying.