Cyberbullying
Abstract
Cyberbullying is simply bullying others through the use of technology, such as mobile phones, computers, and social media. Cases of cyberbullying are rapidly increasing due to increased use of the Internet among children. Bullying hurts the victim, but it can also hurt the close friends and family of the child being bullied. According to the research, the victims of cyberbullying end up bullying others as a way of revenge. It is the responsibility of the school and parents to teach children about bullying. Children should be educated about causes, effects, and how they can avoid bullying. It is also recommended never to share your account login and internet privacy codes since bullying uses this information to hack other people’s accounts to spread rumors and post “dirty” pictures.
Keywords: cyberbullying, bully, bully-victims
Bullying on children has become a significant issue, and it has been made worse specifically by the use of the Internet. Cyberbullying is bullying others through the use of technology, such as the use of mobile phones, computers, and social media. Children ought to be educated on what and not to post on the Internet To keep them from being bully or keep them from becoming a target of bullying.
The Internet has made it easy for children to bully one another and spread the rumors much faster. One post on social media can hurt someone more than physically hurting. The research shows that the victims of cyberbullying end up bullying others as a way of revenge. Bullying not only hurts the victim, but it can also hurt the friends and relatives of the child been bullied. Purposely, this paper discusses the effects of cyberbullying on children, possible solutions, and recommendations to curb the problem.
Cyberbullying is an emerging problem among teenagers, and it needs serious attention. Children are known to post dirty things about each other, and such posts can go too far. In most cases, the victims of cyberbullying have done absolutely nothing wrong, and they don’t deserve to be bullied. Cyberbullying on children may occur since some want to feel better about themselves (Hawton & Stewart, 2018). Nevertheless, some teenagers put themselves into trouble that makes them become the targets of bullying. For instance, some will post their inappropriate picture while clubbing or parting, and people will take such an advantage to make fun of such posts.
Cyberbullying is a significant problem since it is hurting children by making them feel like nobody. It makes children commit suicide, feels lonely, has no friends, moves houses, changes schools, can’t go anywhere, and even others are not invited to any events. Moreover, bullied victims feel unwanted and isolated, which might make them think that no one cares about them (Kwan et al., 2020). The long term impacts of cyberbullying could be severe, and if not well dealt with, it can continue causing more deaths among children. A perfect example of a cyber-bullying is a case that involved a child called Halligan Ryan. He had a problem with his motor skills and speech. Due to his disabilities, he was continuously bullied by his schoolmates. Unfortunately, he made a mistake of sharing an embarrassing story with a friend who turned out to be a bully. The “bully friend” started rumors that Ryan was gay. Early October last year committed suicide since the bullying was too much for him to take it. Most surprisingly, there was no case filed to investigate the causal death of this teenager.
Cyberbullying should stop before any more children suffer. Although I don’t see whether bullying will come to an end, yet I believe it can be reduced to a minimal amount. Children should be educated about causes, effects, and how they can avoid bullying. They must know that bullying hurts, and nobody should live being bullied (John et al., 2018). It is the responsibility of the school and parents to teach children about bullying. However, I believe it’s more of guardians’ and parent’s responsibility than schools. Parents should teach their children what to post and what posts can hurt others, whereas the school should stress much about controlling physical bullying. They can curb bullying cases by punishing children who actively bully others.
Another effective way to control cyberbullying on children is to ensure they don’t post explicit photos on social media like Facebook and Instagram. In addition, never discuss your personal life on the Internet. In other words, ensure your personal information is limited to your friends and relatives. Finally, the government should set laws to govern the consumption of internet information by teenagers (Frensh & Mulyadi, 2018). There should include guidelines to track and control what to posts and sites to be accessed by the children.
I recommend that you never share your account login and internet privacy codes. This is because may bully uses personal information to hack someone accounts to post rumors and explicit pictures. Be careful not to open mysterious links that often scam with intensions of accessing personal information.
In conclusion, educating children about cyberbullying is one of the effective ways to prevent social media harassment. Children need to be taught what and what not to post on internets. Besides, parents and guardians should monitor the online activities of their kids and limit their usage. Most importantly, cyberbullying cases should be reported without delay so that the law can take its course.
References
Frensh, W., & Mulyadi, M. (2018). Criminal policy on cyberbullying toward children. In E3S Web of Conferences (Vol. 52, p. 00050). EDP Sciences.
Hawton, K., & Stewart, A. (2018). Self-Harm, Suicidal Behaviours, and Cyberbullying in Children and Young People: Systematic Review.
John, A., Glendenning, A. C., Marchant, A., Montgomery, P., Stewart, A., Wood, S., & Hawton, K. (2018). Self-harm, suicidal behaviors, and cyberbullying in children and young people: Systematic review. Journal of medical internet research, 20(4), e129.
Kwan, I., Dickson, K., Richardson, M., MacDowall, W., Burchett, H., Stansfield, C., & Thomas, J. (2020). Cyberbullying and children and young people’s mental health: a systematic map of systematic reviews. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 23(2), 72-82.