Defining of Cyberbullying - Essay Example

Cyberbullying Affiliation Cyber-bulling Cyberbullying is defined as the repeated and deliberate use of information technology to intimidate repeatedly or harass other people. There are multiple examples of cyberbullying as defined by the U.S laws. Posting rumor about a person, causing hatred among people and defaming or humiliating other people on the internet can all be wrapped up as cyberbullying (Smith et al., 2006). Some actions that involve the use of information technology to support deliberate and repeated behavior by a certain individual or group that is intended to cause harm to the other members of society can also be termed as cyberbullying. The common use of mobiles or other communication devices to send and post text or images that are intended to hurt other people is also cyberbullying. With the increase and advancement in technology, especially information technology, cyberbullying has found a way into the daily lives of people, notably among teenagers. Publishing of defamatory materials about a person on the internet remains a difficult or rather impossible thing to protect (Campbell, 2005). Once such information is exposed to the public, many people download it and shares to other sites. This makes it impossible to remove it from the internet. Some of these defamatory materials include edited photos or defamatory captions that show the victim as posing nude. Some of the well-known effects of cyberbullying are felt in the United States today. One of the most felt damaging effect of cyberbullying among school-aged youth is the fact that the victims are most likely to suffer from low self-esteem (Hinduja et al., 2011). This triggers isolation from family and friends and the victim avoids any friendly activities. This is primarily the intention of the cyberbully. Another effect of cyberbullying is that it might trigger the victim to resort to suicide. Several cases in the United States have been linked to cyberbullying (Hinduja et al., 2010). The predominant example is the suicide of Megan Meier that resulted in United States v. Lori Drew. The scenario has been reported in the Cyberbullying Research Center as cyberbullicide (Hinduja et al., 2010). Cyberbullicide is suicide directly or indirectly linked to the experiences with online harassment or intimidation. Mentally disordered people are more often the most vulnerable of all these as they find it difficult to shrug off the cyberbully. This implies the psychological effect of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is different from the traditional bullying among teenagers. It is because in cyberbullying, the bully is able to mask their identity under the use of pseudonyms in chat rooms, temporary email addresses, use of instant messaging as well as text messaging (Slonje et al., 2008). This makes cyberbullies free from the social constraints that are accompanied by this illegal act. The fact that online messaging are often done with little or no supervision makes cyberbullying a vice hard to get rid off in the society (Patchin et al., 2006). Although some chat hosts regularly check the dialogues in the chat rooms, most of the personal messages exchanged through text messaging and email are only seen by the sender and the receiver. Cyberbullies take advantage of this fact to extend and continue harassing other people. The inseparable nature of the mobile phone handset from their owners makes the owner a ready target for cyberbullying. Since most users prefer to keep their mobile phones with them and most times online, online bullies take this advantage to spread malicious information, harass the owners through mobile telephony and text messaging. This makes cyberbullying have the power to penetrate through the walls of a home, a place that used to act as a hiding place for traditional target of bullying. This can lead to self-isolation for teenagers who experience low self-esteem (Hinduja et al., 2011). Youths are known to spend more time in the media than any other activity apart from sleep. This exposes many school-aged youths to the risk associated with information technology; cyberbullying is one of these risks. Statistics indicates that over a million teens were exposed to cyberbullying through social media (Hinduja et al., 2011). However, it is easy to respond to cyberbullying. The best thing about cyberbullying as opposed to the traditional forms of bullying song school teenagers is that cyberbullying can easily be avoided. One of the best ways of avoiding cyberbullying is by simply avoiding the chat rooms that are harassing you or causing you to be uneasy. Changing your email address and phone numbers can help in avoiding cyberbullying (Smith et al., 2011). Technology also has helped victims of cyberbullying by providing email options that filter out certain messages from certain email addresses. Mobile phones also provide options for blocking calls and text messages from certain identities. Putting in place programs that are aimed at preventing cyberbullying could also help reduce incidences of cyberbullying. Incorporating these programs into the school curricula would help sensitize school teenagers on the issues surrounding cyberbullying and online safety together with ways of using the internet properly. It could be a solution to teaching the victim on the ways to avoid the cyberbully and the effective means of blocking them through increasing their computers’ security, blocking messages from the cyberbullies (Hinduja et al., 2011). Encouraging school teens to adopt effective coping strategies could be another means of preventing cyberbullying. This happens to those who have been victims of cyberbullying before. Forming a group of people who have been earlier victims of cyberbullying would help these teens to come together effectively and share their experiences with cyberbullies. This way, one can cope with the bullying and come up with combative ideas of dealing with cyberbullying in the future. Involving teachers in all the preventive educational models in the school is also another way to prevent and deal with cyberbullying (Smith et al., 2008). This response is much favored by the fact that teachers are the school “police” and, therefore, they should approve everything first. Empowering teachers to deal with most cases that go unreported to parents could be of great assistance altogether (Li, 2007). When confronted by a cyberbully, one is encouraged to save all the information as evidence. Capturing screenshots whenever cyberbullying occurs, printing out Facebook messages and email as well as saving mobile texts may help in responding to cyberbullying. After doing this, turn to the people who can help, may be an adult or the police (Hinduja et al., 2006). Safeguarding your password is another measure that can help youths in their quest to deal with cyberbullying. One is never, at any instance, disclose their vital information to others. Keeping security information away from prying eyes and ensuring that whenever your security information has leaked out, one is supposed to change immediately the security details immediately (Li, 2007). Before posting anything on the internet, one is supposed to consider all people around them first. Ensuring that you post only things, for example, photos that are pleasing to everybody’s eyes and does not threaten your privacy at any time would mean that cyberbullies cannot get a reason to intimidate any person. Before posting on the internet, one is also encouraged to review it. It is worth noting that people are judged based on their self-presentation, and if you present yourself poorly, you risk being the target of cyberbullying. Youths are encouraged to ignore any form of messages from people they do not know anything about. Such messages may contain viruses that automatically infect your mobile device when opened. Deleting them without opening them is the best way to prevent yourself from possible cases of cyberbullying. Again, avoid clicking on unknown links either sent to you by an email or appearing on a web page. Such links may also contain a virus that, when clicked, the virus would collect all the information from you including your security information. It remains a common method cyberbullies reach their victims. At all times, logging out of your social media accounts or email is a way to prevent cyberbullying. Do not allow any web page automatically to save your personal information and login details (Li, 2007). Again, time after time, one is supposed to search their name on the internet. If any compromising information comes out, one is supposed to report them immediately for proper measures to be taken before it becomes destructive to them. Setting up privacy controls ensures that you decide who has access to your posts. This way, one has control on their friends online. References Campbell, M. A. (2005). Cyber Bullying: An Old Problem in a New Guise?. Australian journal of Guidance and Counselling, 15(01), 68-76. Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. (2011). Cyberbullying research center. Retrieved April. Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. W. (Eds.). (2011). State cyberbullying laws: A brief review of state cyberbullying laws and policies. Cyberbullying Research Center. Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. W. (2010). Bullying, cyberbullying, and suicide.Archives of Suicide Research, 14(3), 206-221. Li, Q. (2007). New bottle but old wine: A research of cyberbullying in schools.Computers in human behavior, 23(4), 1777-1791. Patchin, J. W., & Hinduja, S. (2006). Bullies move beyond the schoolyard a preliminary look at cyberbullying. Youth violence and juvenile justice, 4(2), 148-169. Slonje, R., & Smith, P. K. (2008). Cyberbullying: Another main type of bullying?.Scandinavian journal of psychology, 49(2), 147-154. Smith, P. K., Mahdavi, J., Carvalho, M., Fisher, S., Russell, S., & Tippett, N. (2008). Cyberbullying: Its nature and impact in secondary school pupils. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49(4), 376-385. Smith, P. K., Mahdavi, J., Carvalho, M., & Tippett, N. (2006). An investigation into cyberbullying, its forms, awareness and impact, and the relationship between age and gender in cyberbullying. Research Brief No. RBX03-06. London: DfES. Read More