Cyber bullying in teenagers
Introduction
Cyber bullying is the use of information technology to harass and harm people in a repeated, deliberate, and hostile way. The most modern studies has defined cyber bullying, as an intentional, aggressive behavior that is conducted by an individual or a group over time and repeatedly, to a victim who may not be in a position to defend him or herself.
According to the United States legal department, cyber bullying is limited to gossips about an individual in the internet, posting rumors, or the point of identifying people and publishing humiliating and defaming materials about their character. This vice has become increasing common because of the rise in technology use. Its awareness has also risen to a great extent. It’s prudent to say that, cyber bullying is common mostly among the teenagers and that is what I seek to discuss. A cyber bully could be an online stranger or a person whom is known by the target, he may solicit engagement of people online that may not even have knowledge of anything going on.
Cyber bullying is the use of instant messaging, cell phones, chat rooms, e-mail and the social sites for networking such as twitter, face book to threaten, harass, or intimidate someone. This vice is usually done by the young people, who usually have frequent access to such technologies. The problem is made worse by the point that the bully hides behind any electronic veil, and may also hide his/her true identity hence makes it very cumbersome to trace the bully and this encourages them to continue bullying.
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Cyber bullying includes such acts as sending provocative messages, making threats, gay bashing, attempting to infect ones computer with a virus, and also sending one so many messages in his/her inbox. The victim may handle this by trying to limit computer connection period, ignoring threatening messages or defaming messages, and avoiding opening e-mail messages from people you do not know. Other ways to deal with this include white listing or blacklisting of e-mail accounts, changing ISP, changing e-mail address, changing cell phone accounts, and even making efforts to get the source.
As much as cyber bullying is not limited to children but to other adults, and while the vice is noted to have the same meaning when practiced by adults, the difference in age groups at times may give it different naming as cyber harassment or cyber stalking, when engineered by adults to adults. There are various tactics that are used by this group of people to intimidate others and usually they do this in social media, public forums, and online information site with the intention of threatening peoples’ earnings, reputation, employment, or safety. Their behaviors are intended to harass and try to discourage one from participating online and or destroy the reputation of others so as to turn other people against them.
Children report incidences of being mean to others in the use of information technology as early as 2nd grade. Research has shown that boys initiate and develop online actions than girls do. However, by middle age schooling, girls show higher tendencies to involve in cyber bullying than boys. Whichever sex, the bully is, the intention remains the same of trying to humiliate, harass, and or embarrass others, and may be inform of threats, and other forms. It occurs through text messaging, email, web sites and even posts to blogs.
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The national crime prevention association gave out a number of techniques that are used by children to bully others:
a. They forward or send text messages that are mean.
b. Posting victims pictures even without prior permission.
c. Tricking people to reveal their personal information.
d. Spreading rumors and lies about people.
e. Pretending they are people online and tricking others.
A survey by the Crimes against Children Research at the University of New Hampshire in 2000 indicated that 6% of the teenagers under go and experience a given form of harassment which includes negative rumors and threats. (Keith 350).
Research by the same company in 2005 reported that 9% of the teenagers in the survey had gone through harassment. (Keith 360).
Comparatively, youths who are not harassed online, victims have higher chances of having social problems, and on the other hand those who harass others, may have problems with breaking rules and being aggressive.
Other common ways in which teenagers are bulled in the internet is by solicitation of minors for sex by adults.
Research in the psychosocial disciplines has started with the aim of identifying the effects of cyber bullying on the various victims and the consequences that may arise. The consequences are many and vary from when one is online and or offline. Research indicates positive changes with regards to changes in ones behavior when cyber bulled. It says that victims formed a cognitive model for the bullies which would help them to identify aggressive people in the future. (Parchin 211).
Other studies report that critical impacts in a good number of the victims could take the form of disillusionment, low self esteem, extreme self isolation, and distrust of people. The more severe impacts could be self harm, children killing each other, and committing suicide after being involved in cyber bullying incident. Other cases of digital self harm have been seen in areas where an individual engages in bullying themselves.
Sexual harassment as factor in cyber bullying, is another common aspect in video culture game. Studies have indicated that this harassment is majorly contributed to the fact that women are mostly portrayed in video games. And while this is common with women, it mostly targets the teenage girls and it generally includes slurs towards girls, sex role stereotyping and an aggressive language. A study from the National Sun Yat-sen University reported that children who played violent games had high chances of being cyber bulled.
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Bullying is a method of intimidation that has many different types. One of the types of bullying is cyber bullying. Not everybody knows what this is because it is a new form of bullying. The cyber bully usually sends threats, sexual remarks, using offensive language, humiliating videos/photos, rumors/lies, about the victim. All of this is more than likely to be targeted at minors. Although, not ...
Youths spend a lot of time in the media than any other activity they do besides sleeping. “One million children were harassed, threatened or subjected to other forms of cyber bullying on face book during the past year, while 90% of social media using teens who have witnessed online cruelty say they have ignored mean behavior.”(Keith 230).
Conclusion
A good number of the states created laws that explicitly involve electronic forms of communication including harassment or stalking. Most laws agencies that deal with cyber crimes have units which take cyber bullying as a serious crime.
There are a number of laws that help address harassment in the internet, some focus on the children predators while others protect adults from cyber stalking and victims from any age. While some sites have specific laws that protect those under age eighteen, there is an online help source that contains list of cyber stalking related laws within the United States. In addition, it lists states that do not have laws that at present, and also related laws from other countries. However ,because mobile use and online communications has developed so rapidly and cyber bullying as a crime is new and emerging, many stakeholders are debating so as to come up with cyber bullying laws. At the moment, this crime is considered under the existing laws that talks about personal threat and harassment.
Works Cited
Keith, Sarah. Cyber-bullying: creating a culture of Respect in a Cyber. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, (2009).
Betout, David. Cyber-bullying and schools in an electronic era. London: Elsevier, (2006).
Patchin, James. Bullies beyond the schoolyard. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, (2009).
Smith, Walton. Emerging risks of violence in the digital age. London: Elsevier, (2000).
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