Tenzin Tseyang Critical Writing Research paper Professor: Cyber-bullying A lot of things have changed throughout the course

of time, but bullying has and is still one of the major social problems in this world. It is true that technology has brought many remarkable changes in our lives; however, technology has brought about a new type of bullying known as Cyber bullying. There are rules and regulations against traditional bullying but many consider traditional bullying more serious than Cyber bullying. But I strongly believe that it doesnt matter what type of bully it is whether it is physical, mental or emotional Bully is still a bully and it is absolutely unacceptable. People need to understand that the Cyber bulling is a serious matter and it should not be taken lightly. We live in a period where technology is an integral part of our lives so I believe that cyber bullies will continue be a threat because we now live in 21st century and with our advancements in technology it will get worse if we dont do something about it. Before we think of any preventative measures for cyber bullying we need to know what, and how serious cyber bullying is and what the negative effects of cyber bullying are. Cyber bullying is any type of harassment that happens through the Internet. Cyber bullying can occur through text message, email, instant messaging, blogs, chat rooms and any other information communication technologies. Holfeld and Grabe, during their research on Cyberbullying found that, Youth who perpetrated cyber bullying indicated that they used IM (64%) most frequently, followed by cell phones (41%), social

networking sites (40%), e-mail (14%), and chat rooms (12%) to cyber bully others. The reason that makes Cyber bullying such a hard issue to deal with is because of its anonymity- it is hard to trace the bully. According to Brett Holfled and Mark Grabe Contrary to traditional bullying, cyber bullying allows youth to bully from multiple locations, the ability to be anonymous, to embarrass others with an unlimited audience, and to engage in such behaviors with reduced supervision(Middle School Students Perceptions of And Responses to Cyber Bullying). The nature of cyberbully-anonymity makes it harder to detect and come up with preventative methods. One of the things that make Cyber bullying a serious issue is that now the bullies can enter the houses of the victims and terrorize them from the comfort of their own house. With the other types of bullying the victims at least live a bully free life in the evening when they are home, but victims are now bullied even in their own home. For example: The article Mean Machines covers a story of a 13 year old boy who committed suicide due to being bullied. After his 13 year old son hung himself on October 2003, John Halligan logged on to Ryan's computer and discovered why it had happened. Three months' worth of saved Web links and instant messages revealed a chilling story. Halligan learned that several kids had been bullying Ryan at school. Even worse, though, he saw that the bullies didn't stop at the end of the last period. Instead, they followed Ryan home, entered his bedroom, and continued to cruelly hound him in cyberspace Sparkling (mean machine). This story shows us the seriousness of cyber bullying. Imagine the torment that those kids had to have caused through cyber bullying to force a child who was only 13-year-old to chose death over living. Ryan is just one of many teens that have committed a suicide and there are a lot more cases of even adults

who have decided to end their lives due to Cyber bullying. Almost any can be the bully or be the victim of Cyber bullying- grown ups, teenagers, and middle school kids. For example; Sotto who was a senator in Phillipines during the year 2012 states I am probably the first senator of the Phillippines to become a victim of cyber bullying. Through the blogs, Facebook and Twitter, I became the center of a smear campaign and malicious attacks by various people (Sotto: Im a victim of cyber bullying). Sprling states that according to the study completed in year 2004 by iSAFE America, a foundation that educates kids about the dangers of the Internet found that in a national study of 1,566 students in grades four to eight, more than one-half reported that they have been bullied online (Mean Machine). Furthermore The researchers found that 27% of students who experienced bullying online, and 28% who were victims of bullying by phone text messaging, thought about skipping school or skipped it. That's compared to 22% who experienced physical bullying those who said they were cyber bullied were also most likely to say they had considered suicide 28%, compared to 22% who were physically bullied and 26% who received bullying text messages(When bullying goes hi-tech). And Holt also writes Although there may be cultural differences between students in Singapore and the United States, the data on the subject of bullying seems to be similar between the two countries" (When Bullying goes hi-tech). Moreover cyber bullying like any type of bullying causes many serious psychological problems to the victims and the witnesses of the bullying. In the article Bullying and Peer Victimization Dracic states that children who were exposed to bullying considerably more than their peers are subject to depression, loneliness and

anxiety, have a lower degree of self-esteem, suffer from more types of migraine headaches and have suicidal ideas and stress due to bullying can interfere with school duties and learning, which result in a fear of going to school(Dracic). It was also stated in the article that bullying also leaves a negative impact on learning of people who have witnessed and observed bullying. Dracic noted, Observers are usually passive and not willing to report or testify about the violent behavior. In psychology, this passivity is known as a social phenomenon of diffusion of responsibility, which allows the observer to pretend that it was not directly involved, and that nothing should be taken so that responsibility should be left to someone else, because there is a fear that any intervention will lead to inconvenience and spending time around someone elses problem(Bullying And Peer Victimization). Regardless of all of the negative affects of cyber bullying one might argue that by taking an action against cyber bullying is going against someones free speech rights. The answer to that question is yes, it is true that everyone have rights to share their feelings but free speech is not a license to bring harm onto others regardless of what the reason is. If we are to put a stop to cyber bullying or traditional bullying what we need to do is to look for ways to prevent bullying instead of blaming one another. But when I did my research on cyber bullying I found numerous researches that were done to prove that educators should be responsible, some people blame the parents, and some blame the technology. I agree with what Banham said in his article (Battling Back At Bullying) many schools insured by United Educators confront bullying risks by inviting parents, community members and law enforcement to join teachers and administrators in bullying prevention seminars. He further advocates that schools adopt a zero-tolerance policy for

offenses with clear-cut, strict punishment for violators(Banham). It is not just one persons responsibility to stop the bullying, the whole community needs to work together and do their part to put a stop to bullying. Parents can help a lot in putting a stop to cyber bullying. Some of the things that that parents can do are that the parents can monitor their kids computer use at home such as by setting up a time limit to their kids computer, placing a computer in the living room where it is easier for parents to monitor their kids computer activities. It is true that a lot of kids might be apposed to these ideas but parents should do to the things that is needed to be done to prevent bullying from happening. The article tells us that ..Young people who have their computers in their bedroom spend almost double the time online compared to other locations, and that more time online may lead to increased cyber bullying (Cassidy,Brown,Jackson). In article Making Kind Cool when the researchers did a survey asking a question about the parents view on what they can do to prevent it the researcher found that over thirteen parents which makes up 5% of their sample reported that they have absolutely no knowledge about cyber bullying which restricted them from acting against it, and one of the parent said that she is not familiar with the technologies to be able to answer these questions (Making Kind Cool). There are many resources and organizations parents could find online or at the libraries on cyber bullying to help them know more about cyber bullying. Another interesting thing that I came across while researching is that according to the article Making Kind Cool they said that Other research confirms that parents tend to underestimate their childrens cyber bullying behavior or misconstrue the extent of cyber bullying" ( When Bullying goes hi-tech). In my view if the parents

educate themselves and know the consequences, it will help them grasp how the serious of an issue bullying is. Thus parents can help their kids deal with cyber bullying and their children will not have to suffer. Even in school the solutions are not very clear when it comes to cyber bullying. Sparling states that Sometimes school administrators are reluctant to discipline cyber bullies because much of their dirty work takes place off school grounds(Mean Machine). I believe that this is wrong for schools to consider that it is not their responsibility to discipline cyber bully just because it didnt happen on school ground. For example Turley's mother called the school on his behalf, but the students involved only got a talking-to as punishment. Cyber bullying wasn't considered school-related behavior, at least at that time, he said."I was just so afraid of people," says Turley, explaining why he went to different middle schools each year in sixth, seventh and eighth grade. He stayed quiet through most of it, barely speaking to other students(Making Kind Cool). I believe that even if the bullying actually didnt take place at the school, the school should still take a strict action against it.The Schools job is to provide education and provide resources to get the students achieve their dream job, but schools should also teach their students how to be a good human being that includes educating students about social issues such as cyber bullying. We can go on and on about who should be blamed and should take disciplinary actions towards Cyber bullying but that will never solve the problem. Since cyber bullying can happen anywhere and anytime we cannot pin point just one person that should be or is responsible for Cyber bullying, but what we can do is to work together kids, parents, and the educators. We need to educate the world about cyber bullying so we can have a world free of bullying which may sound too good to be

true, but if we all spread awareness about it and take action against bullying may be we can achieve that goal. Scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on an even more automated solution. They want to set up a system that would give bullying victims coping strategies, encourage potential bullies to stop and think before posting something offensive, and allow onlookers to defend victims, said Henry Lieberman(Making Kind Cool). What the victims can do is to talk to someone about it. Share their thoughts and feelings about the cyber bullying. Victims like Emily Anne-Regal creator of an organization WeStopHate.org where victims can communicate with each other and share their experience, provide support and encouragement to the other victims to speak about it. Turley who was also a victim of bullying is now the designer of the website WeStopHate.org decided to speak about his experience with cyber bullying when he was in eighth grade made a YouTube video talking about his experience with cyber bullying and encouraged many of the other victims to come forward. Landau states, Although she and Turley lived on opposite sides of the country, they became friends online, united by their passion for stopping bullying (When bullying goes hi-tech). Usually when it comes to majority of the research topics there are pros and cons about the issues but however I cant think of any, not even one legit argument that will prove that cyber bullying is good. I believe that cyber bullying or any type of bullying is absolutely wrong and the world should have absolutely no remorse towards punishing the people who commit this crime bullying. Traditional bullying was not considered a serious crime but it is now. We cant get rid off or stop using cell phones and computers so the only choice we have is to come up with ways to deal with cyber bullying. Since we live in a world where technology has became an integral part of our lives we cannot go

back and live like how people lived in the past. We need to realize that cyber bullying is now one of the biggest social issues that the world is dealing with right now and cyber bullying is just as if not more severe than the traditional bullying. Because it is a new type of bullying method that involves technology many are not aware of what it is or how to deal with it . What we can do is to educate people about cyber bullying. There should be more laws and severe punishments against the cyber bullying just like how we deal with traditional bullying. Cyber bullying is a devastating tool used by bullys to humiliate and belittle their victims and it destroys their spirit. It should be stopped and we should all work together to try and eradicate this social problem and to try and create a bully free haven for everyone.

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Report on College Students." EBSCO. N.p., 8 June 2009. Web. 7 May 2013. Cassidy, Wanda, Karen Brown, and Margaret Jackson. "Making Kind Cool." Cyber Bullying 415-436 46.4 (2012): 415-36. EBSCO. Web. 17 May 2013. Dracic, Sabaha. "Bullying And Peer Victimization." Materia Socio Medica. EBSCO, 4 Nov. 2009. Web. 7 May 2013. Holfeld, Brett. "MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS PERCEPTIONS OF AND RESPONSES TO CYBER BULLYING." Diss. University of North Dakota, 2012. Abstract. CYBER BULLYING 395-413, 46.4 (2012): 396-411. EBSCO. Web. 7 May 2013. Landau, Elizabeth. "CNN." CNN. Cable News Network, 15 Apr. 2013. Web. 20 May 2013. "Sotto: I'm a Victim of Cyber Bullying." Sotto: I'm a Victim of Cyber Bullying [Manila] 13 July 2012, Final ed.: 18-19. EBSCO. Web. 7 May 2013. Sparling, Polly. "Mean Machine." New Technologies Can Let the Neighborhood Bully Taunt You Anywhere, Anytime. But You Can Fight Back. 28.8 (2005): n. page. EBSCO. Web. 7 May 2013. Speaking out about It Wont Bring Erin and Shannon Backbut It Might Help Someone.EBSCO.Newspaper Source Plus, 23Dec.2012.Web.7May2013.