Cyber-bullying: The Internets Contribution to Aggressive Behaviour in Adolescents - Literature review Example

Cyber-Bullying: The Internets Contribution to Aggressive Behaviour in Adolescents Name: College: Course: Lecturer: Date: In the contemporary society, internet has emerged as the predominant source of entertainment for adults and young people as well. Based on the available body of evidence, internet which includes computer games, video, online chatting and other social networking sites has had a vast influence on adolescents. One of the major arguments advanced by behavioral scientists and psychological analysts is that internet is an important vent through which adolescents can interact, relieve their frustrations and daily stress (Campbell, 2005). Although such notions cannot be dismissed as unfounded, it is also a verity that majority of today’s electronic entertainment sources particularly internet repeatedly facilitate aggressive behavior (Campbell, 2005). In essence, internet facilitates aggressive behavior in adolescents, which is evident through the research on the new phenomenon of cyber-bullying. The topic of behavior change has at all times intrigued researchers specifically those majoring in the field of psychology. The internet age that is synonymous with modern times has considerably transformed the face of entertainment. Around the world, parents continue to express unparalleled worries that the violent content exhibited in the internet has the effect of instilling aggressive tendencies amongst their adolescents (Dehue, Bolman and Vollink, 2008). Although both genders have not been spared by the massive influence of internet, a research carried out among adolescents living in Netherlands and Belgium concluded that male adolescents were more attracted to violent content in the internet as compared to females (Li, 2006) Teens today are spending fewer times interacting outdoors and socializing with fellow beings, and they are increasingly spending a lot of time on electronic devices surfing or gaming on the internet. Portable gadgets to accomplish such events while on the go are also available. Indeed this is a symbol of the contemporary times (Chih-Hung K et al, 2009). Troublingly, though, different studies have associated specific internet activities and aggressive video games with undesirable thought and behavioral patterns such as violent tendencies and increased aggression. Cassidy, Jackson, and Brown (2009), elaborates the attributes of the victim and the bully and then analyses the two. Bullying is a kind of abuse that occurs between teens that can assume different forms amongst numerous stages. Cassidy, Jackson, and Brown (2009) define bullying as a type of abuse that is perpetrated when there is a power disparity among the victim and the abuser. For bullying to occur one teen must have authority over another. Authority or power comes in numerous different forms; social status, height, weight and strength in numbers are all varying ways in which a child can exercise power over another. Other types of power come into play between teens when one discovers another’s susceptibility against the victim (Leung, 2004). The longer the maltreatment occurs, the stronger the authority becomes for the bully and the victim becomes weaker. Adolescents who intimidate are learning to exercise aggression and power to control others while teens who are abuse become powerless after sometime and are incapable of defending themselves(). Online chat rooms and social networking sites are easy means for teens to exercise power in large numbers over a single child. According to Leung (2004), visiting sexually inclined websites and playing video games could aggravate adolescents to observe experience and even attempt violent behaviors leading to a constructive outcome including winning in games, being a hero and identifying with a group. Lodge and Frydenberg (2007) examined nine thousand, four hundred and five teens and noted their behavior and internet activity to find that thirty two percent of all males and thirteen percent of all females confessed participating in aggressive behavior including hurting or threatening others as compared with thirty percent of those obsessed with the internet. While the available body of knowledge indicates that internet usage causes teenagers to behave more violently, the fact that violent adolescents could also be seeking internet cannot be dismissed as baseless. Another argument is that adolescents with poor social skills do not have any associates, thus they spend most of their time on the net and cannot be able to resolve conflicts in a non-violent manner. Duja, and Patchin (2007), evaluated the link between violent behaviors and internet addiction and the moderating impacts of school, depression and gender on this link. The study illustrated that after accounting for the impacts of shared linked factors and viewing television programs, teens with internet obsession were likely to exhibit violent behaviors. The connection was more considerable among teens in junior high school than those in senior vocational schools. Adult pornography web viewing, online chatting, online gambling, bulletin board system and online gaming were all linked to aggressive behavior. This aggressive behavior may get worse and such adolescent find it ordinary to send harassing and threatening and emails as well as instant messages to their victims, while others post gossip or rumors and incite others to gang up or dislike the target. This implies that preventive programs for violent behavior should focus on internet addiction amongst teens. In addition, intervention to circumvent the impacts of internet obsession should be implemented the earliest time possible. A research by Mason (2008).discloses factors connected to victimization from harassment. The biggest protective aspect against victimization is being liked by friends and having peers. A fifth grade model of roughly one hundred students indicated that bullies comprised fourteen percent of the model. In addition, victims made up roughly eighteen percent of the model (). This research does not incorporate the occurrence of cyber-bullying. Nevertheless, one should understand that all types of abuse involve some kind of spoken abuse. This research indicates that the incidence of harassment is already high in learning institutions. Campbell (2005) highlights the frequency of cyber-bullying. A study in Britain indicated that one in every four adolescents revealed being bullied on the web or by through mobile phones. In a different study of eighth grade students in Australia, over twenty five percent said they had come across someone harassed using technology. A research in America indicated that fifteen percent of their model presented themselves as online bullies and seven percent had been beleaguered online. Most victims of online bullying were harassed through texts, followed by online chat rooms then through emails. Lodge and Frydenberg (2007) carried out a research in U.S to reveal the incidence of cyber-bullying amongst adolescents. Nineteen percent of regular web users in a sample of 1,501 teens disclosed that they participated in internet harassment in some way during the previous year. 3% were targets or aggressors. An extra 4% indicated that they were subjects of aggression and twelve percent reported violent behavior towards other on the internet. The information revealed that the bullies normally targeted somebody they knew beyond the online surrounding. Generally, the research indicated that online aggression was not different from conventional methods of harassment in its recurring nature. Fifty five percent of online targets of bullying revealed that they had been tormented severally by the same person. The consequences of physical or face-to-face bullying have illustrated an improvement in depression levels, psychosomatic symptoms and anxiety in victims. Studies have indicated that the psychological and verbal bullying that occurs on the internet may possess a more unhelpful long-term impact than physical harassment that frequently occurs in conventional face-to-face types of bullying. Additionally, it is important to note that there is a chance for larger addressees to become conscious of an incident involving cyber-bullying than it is in a bullying incident which occurs in a schoolyard. Messages and emails can be sent to all adolescent contacts and web pages could be established so that huge numbers of people could log in and intimidate the victim. Verbal cruelty that is conveyed orally lasts for a very short time but written verbal abuse can be copied, communicated and read several times. Moreover, there is almost no get away from cyber-bullying because it can occur at any time and anywhere (Bauman, 2006) The Internet is becoming the favored method of interaction for youth. It is also becoming a place for bullying, aggravated by perceptions of inscrutability, greater technical knowledge among adolescents, and the capability of bullying images and messages to be sent from anywhere at any time and speedily transmitted to a huge audience. The overwhelming effect of cyber-bullying, including delinquency substance use and depression has exposed cyber bullying as a leading public health problem. While an increasing research base exists, approximating the pervasiveness of cyber bullying to be between 9% and 25% (Beran and Li, 2007), the long-term impacts of lengthened internet contact are subject to discussion these days between researchers. Some contend that adolescents who are obsessed to surfing the internet are more probable to be aggressive and therefore require monitoring from teachers and parents. Others are reluctant to accepting that a correlation exists between internet addiction and violent behavior. Beran and Li (2007) argues that studies have failed to illustrate that one behavior causes the other although they have proven that teens who play aggressive video games will be more vulnerable to aggressive actions, feelings and thoughts. Nevertheless, the subject of internet obsession still remains an enigma even to behavioral psychologists, in spite of the verity that the phenomenon was first described and reported more than ten years ago. It is obvious that the impacts of cyber-bullying can be unbearable. The society has experienced a considerable transformation. These changes have resulted from a considerable increase in information technologies and electronic communication. Adolescents were restricted to bullying each other within school limits, now most may be unsafe n their homes. Ninety nine percent of teenagers use the web on a regular basis; seventy four percent of teenage girls spend a lot of time on instant messaging or chat rooms than doing schoolwork (Chih-Hung K et al, 2009). A recent study of three thousand seven hundred American middle school students revealed that eighteen percent experienced cyber-bullying (Dehue, Bolman, and Vollink, 2008). This information indicates that cyber-bullying is a developing problem amongst teens due to the increased internet use amongst adolescents. According to Li (2006) the anonymity of online bullying makes it difficult for schools to monitor or even supervise. Hundreds of teens can participate in cyber-bullying and peers who might usually not participate in this type of behavior are capable of remaining unidentified behind their computers. The available body of evidence has revealed that not only conventional types of maltreatment, but cyber-bullying also are an increasing issue that can have negative effects on adolescents. Notable similarities exist between cyber-bullying and conventional forms of bullying. All types of bullying illustrate developmental and behavioral problems for the perpetrator and the victim. Traditional and cyber-bullying both reveal a power differential between the abuser and the victim and both types reveal repeat maltreatment as a problem. This study powerfully supports the notion that cyber-bullying is a developing problem that can be difficult to manage due to the anonymity of the abuser and the rising number of adolescents communicating electronically. References Beran, T., and Li, Q. (2007). The relationship between cyber- bullying and school bullying. Journal of Student Wellbeing, 1(2), 15-33. Chih-Hung K et al. (2009). The associations between aggressive behaviors and internet addiction and online activities on adolescents, Journal of Adolescent Health, 44(6), 598-605. Campbell, M. A. (2005). Cyber- bullying: An old problem in a new guise? Australian Journal of Guidance and Counseling, 15(1), 68-76. Cassidy, W., Jackson, M., and Brown, K. N. (2009). Sticks and stones can break my bones, but how can pixels hurt me? Students experiences with cyber-bullying. School Psychology International, 30(4), 383-402. David-Ferdon, C., and Hertz, M. F. (2007). Electronic media, violence, and adolescents: An emerging public health problem. Journal of Adolescent Health, 41, 1-5. Dehue, F., Bolman, C., and Vollink, T. (2008). Cyber bullying: Youngsters experiences and parental perception. Cyber Psychology & Behavior, 11(2), 217-223. Duja, S., and Patchin, W. J. (2007). Offline consequences of online victimization: School violence and delinquency. Journal of School Violence, 6(3), 89-112. Li, Q. (2006). Cyber-bullying in schools: A research of gender differences. School Psychology International, 27(2), 157-170. Leung, L. (2004). Net-Generation attributes and seductive properties of the internet as predictors of online activities and internet addiction. Cyber-Psychology & Behavior, 7(3), 333-348. Lodge, J., and Frydenberg, E. (2007). Cyber-Bullying in Australian Schools: Profiles of adolescent coping and insights for school practitioners. The Australian Educational and Development Psychologist, 24(1), 45-58. Mason, K. L. (2008). Cyber-bullying: A preliminary assessment for school personnel. Psychology in the schools, 45(4), 323-348. . Read More

Troublingly, though, different studies have associated specific internet activities and aggressive video games with undesirable thought and behavioral patterns such as violent tendencies and increased aggression. Cassidy, Jackson, and Brown (2009), elaborates the attributes of the victim and the bully and then analyses the two. Bullying is a kind of abuse that occurs between teens that can assume different forms amongst numerous stages. Cassidy, Jackson, and Brown (2009) define bullying as a type of abuse that is perpetrated when there is a power disparity among the victim and the abuser.

For bullying to occur one teen must have authority over another. Authority or power comes in numerous different forms; social status, height, weight and strength in numbers are all varying ways in which a child can exercise power over another. Other types of power come into play between teens when one discovers another’s susceptibility against the victim (Leung, 2004). The longer the maltreatment occurs, the stronger the authority becomes for the bully and the victim becomes weaker. Adolescents who intimidate are learning to exercise aggression and power to control others while teens who are abuse become powerless after sometime and are incapable of defending themselves().

Online chat rooms and social networking sites are easy means for teens to exercise power in large numbers over a single child. According to Leung (2004), visiting sexually inclined websites and playing video games could aggravate adolescents to observe experience and even attempt violent behaviors leading to a constructive outcome including winning in games, being a hero and identifying with a group. Lodge and Frydenberg (2007) examined nine thousand, four hundred and five teens and noted their behavior and internet activity to find that thirty two percent of all males and thirteen percent of all females confessed participating in aggressive behavior including hurting or threatening others as compared with thirty percent of those obsessed with the internet.

While the available body of knowledge indicates that internet usage causes teenagers to behave more violently, the fact that violent adolescents could also be seeking internet cannot be dismissed as baseless. Another argument is that adolescents with poor social skills do not have any associates, thus they spend most of their time on the net and cannot be able to resolve conflicts in a non-violent manner. Duja, and Patchin (2007), evaluated the link between violent behaviors and internet addiction and the moderating impacts of school, depression and gender on this link.

The study illustrated that after accounting for the impacts of shared linked factors and viewing television programs, teens with internet obsession were likely to exhibit violent behaviors. The connection was more considerable among teens in junior high school than those in senior vocational schools. Adult pornography web viewing, online chatting, online gambling, bulletin board system and online gaming were all linked to aggressive behavior. This aggressive behavior may get worse and such adolescent find it ordinary to send harassing and threatening and emails as well as instant messages to their victims, while others post gossip or rumors and incite others to gang up or dislike the target.

This implies that preventive programs for violent behavior should focus on internet addiction amongst teens. In addition, intervention to circumvent the impacts of internet obsession should be implemented the earliest time possible. A research by Mason (2008).discloses factors connected to victimization from harassment. The biggest protective aspect against victimization is being liked by friends and having peers. A fifth grade model of roughly one hundred students indicated that bullies comprised fourteen percent of the model.

In addition, victims made up roughly eighteen percent of the model (). This research does not incorporate the occurrence of cyber-bullying.

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