Cyberbullying: Review of the Literature Essay

Many adolescents are possibly experiencing violence through cyber bullying. Cyber bullying can be very harmful to teens because it can cause depression, anxiety, and even suicide. Cyber bullying is both harmful to the victims and the bullies. In some cases, the cyber bullies may not recognize the outcomes of their actions to themselves. Research was conducted by the Cyber Bullying Research Center and the outcomes indicated that 80 percent of teenagers are affected by cyber bullying. Girls are the most affected than boys. Almost half of teenagers have been victims of certain form of cyber bullying, while 10 to 20 percent experience it on a regular basis. This paper gives a clear picture of the entire concept of cyber bullying and provides solutions to this problem.

Bullying is defined as repeated acts of peer aggression intentionally designed to harm a person who is weaker than the bully. Bullying has distractive influence in student’s achievement, and the school environment. When students having fears of going to school because of violence and harassment, their attendance decreased and cause gap achievement. Advances in technology, such as the internet and social media applications have led to a new form of bullying, cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is defined as bullying through electronic media, such as through social networks, e-mail, or mobile devices. The bullying may take the form of mocking, lying, threatening, or sharing private information without permission (Yalda, 2012). Some cyber bullies are victims of real word bullying, and go online and bully others to feel powerful. Others are bullies offline, and want to extend their sphere of influence and power to the online world. Other cyber bullies just want to show that they can do certain things online to show off (Raskauskas & Stoltz, 2007).

Statement of the Problem

Cyber bullying has been found to be a serious threat to the social and academic health of adolescents. One of the most effective strategies for stopping cyber bullying is curtailing the bully’s access to devices used to bully, such as the internet. This is challenging because (a) it requires parental cooperation, and (b) schools have to be careful not to violate students’ rights (King, 2010). Before these challenges can be dealt with, the first step to implementing the strategy must be in correctly determining if cyber bullying is occurring. Identifying cyber bullying is the necessary first step to stopping cyber bullying and providing the victim with appropriate treatment. Most cyber bullying takes place between school peers, so educators, in addition to parents, are in a unique position to watch for cyber bullying. The purpose of the proposed research is to determine how well educators recognize the signs of cyber bullying (Yalda, 2010).