Paper Example on Effects of Cyberbullying amongst College Students

Introduction

Over the years after the introduction of technology, cyberbullying has been on the rise, and it is a matter that should be discussed especially among young people. Cyberbullying refers to the use of electronic communication or platform to bully a person by sending intimidating messages or pictures. It can happen in various places internet platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, emails, and text messages. Cyberbullying is an emerging issue in the context of higher education as information and communication technologies have increasingly become part of daily life in universities and colleges.

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The purpose of this research is to figure out to what extent college students would favor education on cyber-bullying. Since it has become a trend especially for college students to experience cyber-bullying, they have decided to make it more public and educate others who have no exposure to this form of bullying, to get to know what measures they should take to make the matter known to prevent more cases from happening in future.

This project will specifically address the negative impacts of cyber-bullying on students and the actions that college students need to take to reduce cases of cyberbullying. The study established that cyberbullying affected the academic performance of learners which increased the number of school dropouts. Victims of this sort of bullying become at risk of falling into a depression that could force them into drugs and alcohol abuse. The most extreme impact of cyberbullying is suicide. Most students who are bullied always end up taking away their lives. There are several steps that the abused can take which includes; keeping the evidence that has been acquired as this can be a valuable aid to the law enforcers who will need a record of events. The second step is getting to talk about it to a trusted person to help a victim gain confidence. Another action taken can be to go private on their various social media accounts to give room for the bullies to back off since they will not be able to access any of your information and can be accompanied by blocking the bullies, one has been advised not to retaliate instead choose to ignore the bullies. The final and most critical move to take has been to report the bullies to the law enforcers or the school's security or even address the issue to site administrators.

The target audience of this research is college students, institutions of higher learning and the general public. The study may interest law enforcers too who may be working on such cases. The method used in conducting this project is by use of online surveys on student population. The survey would be based on a random sampling of the target student population and carrying out statistical tests based on different tools.

The intended outcome of the analysis will be to examine the negative impact of cyberbullying among college students. The results would then be used to establish the extent to which college students would favor education on cyberbullying and ensure that the information gathered would be spread across different colleges globally and further awareness of cyberbullying.

Literature Review

Cyberbullying is an issue of concern especially at the higher learning institutions because of the fast developing aspects of information technology which students, however, utilize wrongly. Johnson et al., (2016) argued that there is a need to investigate the feelings, beliefs and the behaviors of students concerning cyberbullying at the university. Umesh et al., (2018) recognized that cyberbullying is a vice in the colleges that puts the victims in a critical situation which could escalate to more problems. For example, students are subjected to this kind of oppression always feel upset and tend to be only on rare occasions (Hinduja & Patchin, 2009). The findings imply that cyberbullying is wrong concerning the possible results of the practice. Cyberbullying is not associated with any desirable feature in the student community since the victims of the same tend to suffer much; therefore, there is need to understand the issue better and suggest ways through which the problem can be controlled.

Cyberbullying has the potential of pushing students into committing suicide. Cyberbullying leads to stress which could escalate to depression that subjects one to thoughts of ending their lives. According to Kota et al., (2014), individuals who develop suicidal thoughts tend to have been subjected to numerous episodes of cyberbullying by their colleagues. The choice of suicide is not a proper and a less informed step to take; they wrongfully, consider it as a way of escaping the future cases of cyberbullying (Ellen, 2015). This mostly happens in environments where students cannot think of any order of tackling the issue and imagine of no one who can effectively intervene in their problems.

Cyberbullying has also been reported as a social issue that introduces students to drug and substance abuse. Tezer (2017) suggested that the intermediate result is usually the intense level of depression through which they undergo; student bullies make life difficult for the vulnerable one who tends to be confused about psychological existence. Consequently, Kowalski et al., (2012) emphasized that as they feel that the problem is overwhelming, they try to hide from reality and resort to the use of drugs mostly at an early age. This occurs because of the psychological torture they are facing. Since most of the students are adolescents, they lack knowledge and experience in handling the problem. On this note, many students have become potential drug addicts having not been guided on the most reactive measures in the event of cyberbullying.

Students at institutions of higher learning have embraced the millennial aspects of the technology. Faucher, Jackson, and Cassidy (2014) observed that technology should be used as an opportunity to control the problem of cyberbullying rather than making it thrive in universities. One of the approaches through which they aid in stopping the issue is by saving the evidence and involving the legal and administrative officers around them or within the school. Faucher, Jackson, and Cassidy (2014) believed that this would be effective since the act itself occurs in the electronic context; therefore, having it stored for evidence purposes cannot be an issue. Besides, the students who could have been cyberbullying victims should consider cutting their cyber-based relationships with the potential bullies. This is possible in the electronic context by getting rid of them by blocking them from social circles. The move can serve as a way of avoiding any c contact with them, and the problem would be solved to some extent.

The theoretical framework of cyberbullying on college student has been viewed from different perspectives. The relationship between the individual's self-control and cyberbullying is focused on the direct and indirect effects of bullying habits which have been based on victimization and perpetration of the victims, causing low self-control to individuals. Cyberbullying has made individuals fear the use of social media by attacking the victim's sense of self and identity, as most of them have ended up going back to the analog or old-fashioned methods of communication.

Methods

To determine the effects if Cyberbullying amongst College students, I researched a section of College Students. I administered online surveys to College students in my state (California) for data collection. The number of College Students who participated in the survey is 20,457 against a total number of 780, 000 College Students in my State. This number of participants is fair enough because online surveys are likely to have few respondents. Besides, the participants are representative of the student population who use technology in their everyday life.

Random probability sampling methods were used in this research to give equal opportunity to everyone to participate in the survey. "Probability sampling is based on the fact that every member of a population has a known and equal chance of being selected" (Stephanie, 2015). Since online surveys are designed to target a specific population, random probability sampling will eliminate any potential bias and enhance the validity of the research outcomes.

Since the research aimed at determining the relationship between Cyber-Bullying and its effects, I used a cross-sectional study. The questions enquired if they have been Cyberbullied before and whether it affected them later on in their day-to-day lives. Thus in this way, a comparison of two groups of people as possible, one group being those that have been bullied before and the other group is that of those who have never been bullied before. "The defining feature of a cross-sectional study is that it can compare different population groups at a single point in time" (Institute for Work and Health, 2015). The cross-sectional study further allows the researcher to look into the finer details of the participants and make conclusions that a representative of the population in question.

Dependent Variable

The dependent variable for this study was Cyberbullying. The following are the items used in this survey:

• I have been Cyber-bullied before.
• I know of someone who has been Cyber-bullied.
• I got low self-esteem after being Cyber-bullied.
• I became suicidal after being Cyber-bullied.
• I shared my experience with someone else.
• I stopped using the internet.
• I resorted to using drugs to handle depression.

The instrument had a 5-point scale ranging from Strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), Not sure (3), agree (4) and strongly agree (5).

Independent Variables

The independent variables in this study include self-esteem, drug abuse, and suicidal thoughts. Self-esteem was operationalized as whether the individual had low or high self-esteem. Suicidal thoughts were operationalized as whether the individual had them or not. Drug abuse was operationalized as whether one had resorted to drugs or not in handling depression from cyberbullying.

Control Variables

These were considered to be age, gender, and race. Gender was operationalized as male (=1) and female (=0), race as white (=1) and Non-White (=0) and age as Adult (=1) and Non-Adult (=0).

Analysis

Statistical analysis using SPSS (Version 15) was used in analyzing the data. Initially, Descriptive analysis was conducted to get the overall relationship between cyberbullying and its effects. Later, Ordinary Least-Squares regression was employed on the data to estimate the relationship between the variables discussed above.

One can rely on statistics to present a salient and objective picture of a topic. However, statistics has its shortcomings. "As simple and straightforward as these little numbers promise to be. Statistics, if not used carefully, can create more problems than they solve" (Twain, 2019). Many people lack an adequate grasp of statistics and do not know how to properly apply statistical methods, evaluating the data and interpreting the statistics. For example, bias sampling may lead to incorrect data which is misleading, especially in the case of non-random sampling.

How does the Research add on Previous Research?

The research will add to existing research by providing measures that can be undertaken to curb the problem of cyberbullying in learning institutions. It would further propose steps that should be taken by higher learning institutions to prevent the spread of negative consequences of cyberbullying. In future research, experiments should be conducted to determine the extent to which these interventions help address the negative effects of cyberbullying.

Conclusion

In conclusion, cyberbullying can be detrimental to the vict...