Cyberbullying: Worse Than Traditional Bullying - Research Paper

Introduction

Cyberbullying can be defined as a form of harassment which is executed by the use of technology (Toppo, 2006). According to the survey conducted, 4700 youths on cyberbullying have indicated that online bullying is worse than traditional forms of bullying. Research shows that young people will find it difficult to show care for friends who are being cyberbullied since they are afraid of being cyberbullied themselves (Beckerman, 2003). According to another survey conducted by Vodafone, it showed that 20% of teens who were involved in the survey-almost one in five have been subjected to cyberbullying instances. Within that group, 18% experienced suicidal thoughts. More than 45% of youths consider cyberbullying as a big and contentious problem more than drug abuse (Dooley, 2009). Further findings have also depicted that 40% reckoned that cyberbullying made them feel unhappy and destitute. 30% felt deserted and 20% of those stayed away from school. Based on these hooks, my topic of discussion will candidly focus on the reasons why cyberbullying is more harmful as opposed to traditional bullying.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Cyberbullying Involves a Large Audience

Cyberbullying is worse than face-to-face intimidation since it is executed through online means which provides the chance for large numbers of people to view comments, photos, and videos (Pittaro, 2019). It is also easy to share photos with large masses of people through group chats. This facet brings a lot of humiliation to the affected target audience as opposed to physical bullying which is done by a limited number of people and does not spread (Pittaro, 2019). As a result of that, cyberbullying has a lot of victimization rates since it is done online. For example, 19% of victims were sampled in May 2007 and, 29% in November two years later. This shows that cyberbullying has been having a broader range of victimization rates than face-to-face bullying. Another study conducted in 2010 showed that 2, 165 male youths and 2,216 female youths were victims of cyberbullying instances, and this number is alarmingly high compared to face-to-face bullying.

Statistics by global research indicate that one-in-five teens have been cyberbullied across 11 nations, and this shows how grave cyberbullying is in terms of affecting a large number of audiences (Beckerman, 2003). Vodafone and YouGov have also indicated about forty percent of teens said that they felt dejected or destitute after the cyberbullying incident signifying the main effects of cyberbullying. Due to cyberbullying affecting a large number of audiences it has proven to be a difficult form of intimidation to stop as opposed to traditional bullying (Toppo, 2006). According to recent reports by NYPD states that fifteen percent of cyberbullying perpetrators have so far been nabbed as opposed to ninety percent of perpetrators in face-to-face bullying. (Pittaro, 2019). It has made the long-term consequence of cyberbullying to be greater than face-to-face bullying since "Defaming remarks hell-bent on degrading the reputation of a victim can be far damaging than face-to-face altercations." That is according to Greg Teppo (Dooley, 2009). He further mentions that "youths are more susceptible to cyberbullying since it is an endless form of harassment and involves large audience than face-to-face bullying."

No Escape in Cyberbullying

Ostensibly, it is not easy to escape from cyberbullying since it can take place the whole day or the entire week. As long as the participants involved are active, they can text, comment, send images/videos, or make a call at any time of the day. Unlike face to face which takes time at the physical site and lets an individual free, cyberbullying is much involving. This causes trauma and anxiety since participants find it difficult to escape such conversations. A survey was done in 2015 highlight that cyberbullying is varying at a broader spectrum with the teenagers being the highest number of victims. Cyberbullying, particularly in online platforms, happens around the clock. Around 4720 teenagers experience cyberbullying around the world and they find it difficult to escape (Jack, 2017). Despite the fact that they are afraid of being bullied, they take time to find the right words to escape the conversations and in they suffer from cyberbullying.

Research done by Vodafone indicated that the long conversations that result in cyberbullying online are worse than drug abuse (Jack, 2017). The large group of participants affected is teenagers. This is a bigger problem in American society for the fact that nearly 18 percent of teens cyber-bulled develop suicidal thoughts. At the same time, cyberbullying vary across gender. According to research, female categories are reported to take a high percentage of cyberbullying than males. They have a reticence experience since in most circumstances they like leave hurtful comments that in most cases forces their counterparts to leave a reply/comment. Since the conversation is done using technology, they find it easy to engage in the conversations all through until their counterparts are hurt. Therefore, cyberbullying can invoke emotions, anger, and frustration for a longer period of time something that makes it remain dominant when comparing it to face to face. This is true because there is competition in the social media hierarchy, which ignites a battle that does not involve age or physical complexity.

Cyberbullying is Permanent

Since cyberbullying involves the use of technology to deliberately upset someone, most of the content and items posted online become difficult to delete. Nature permanent images, videos, comments or text may continue hurting or upsetting an individual for an extended period of time as compared to face to face bullying which is done once. Consequently, the incident of cyberbullying many remind other people or other generations thereby invoking emotions and anger. Donegan (2012), highlights that public posting, forwarding or sending messages involving people of all age and with or without consent, the deletion or creation of content is dependent on the person who wants to humiliate others. Therefore, unless the person decides to delete the message, it will forever remain in the platform and even distributed thus resulting to harm. This message can affect members of the community or school children since today's society is learned by technological tools. Cyberbullying leaves a digital trail that causes anonymity since the person being bullied may not know the person or people who are bullying them. They may also not know the causal of the abusive content.

The effects of cyberbullying that individuals experienced can be retrieved many years later. If the content posted online has mental health effects, social or economic outcomes, they can affect future generations. They are not like a person who can forget what happened or maybe decide to move on. Cyberbullying is similar to taking revenge but in this approach, it affects the same type of people who were hurt in the first time. This causes great distress among the affect persons for the fact that all people including children spend their time online. For instance, Donegan (2012), asserts that technology plays a great role in people's lives (83%) use mobile phones, (50%) spent most of their time online, and (50.1%) spent their time on Facebook. Therefore, it is easy for them to retrieve information that is posted.

Conclusion

In conclusion, based on the reasons such as cyberbullying targeting large audiences, being permanent, and proofing that there is no escape, it results in emotional trauma to many victims than face-to-face cyberbullying. The permanent nature created by online bullying is more serious than face-to-face altercation since it can affect other youths in the generations to come, while traditional bullying will only affect the one being bullied. Once the authorities nab the wrongdoer of face-to-face bullying the issue will stop. It is hard for the targeted victims to escape from cyberbullying since it can take a whole day, seven days a week. As opposed to traditional harassment where the victim is only bullied within the same day. Hence reaffirming my topic which states that online bullying is harmful as opposed to traditional intimidation.

References

Beckerman, L., & Nocero, J. (2003, February). High-tech student hates mail. Education Digest, 68(6), 37.

Donegan, R. (2012). Bullying and cyberbullying: History, statistics, law, prevention, and analysis. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, 3(1), 33-42.

Dooley, J. J., Pyzalski, J., & Cross, D. (2009). Cyberbullying versus face-to-face bullying: A theoretical and conceptual review. Zeitschrift fur Psychologie/Journal of Psychology, 217(4), 182-188.

Jack, R. (2017). Cyberbullying: Why is it different from face-to-face bullying? End Bullying Now.

Pittaro, M. (2019). Cyberbullying in Adolescence: Victimization and Adolescence. In Handbook of Research on School Violence in American K-12 Education (pp. 267-285). IGI Global.

Toppo, G. (2006, April). High-tech bullying may be on the rise. USA Today, p. 8. Retrieved August 7, 2006, from Ebsco.