Cyberbullying and Its Harmful Effects

Cyberbullying and Its Harmful Effects



Bullying has been an unfortunate aspect of school for students across the world.   Teasing, name-calling, and getting laughed at has become a regular part of the day for some students.   These students are the victims of bullies that roam school grounds everywhere. Up until the recent surge in new forms of technology, students only had to deal with bullying at school.   Once they got off the bus they were in the comfort of their own home, away from the bullies that tormented them at school.   Now, bullies prey on their victims through various uses of the internet and cell phones.   This new form of bullying, cyberbullying, “is defined as an individual or group willingly using information and communication involving electronic technologies to facilitate deliberate and repeated harassment or threat to another individual or group by sending or posting cruel text and/or graphics using technological means” (Mason 2008).   Students must now deal with bullying not only at home, but anywhere that our technological world permeates. Cyberbullying is a serious problem for students because the impact of bullying can now reach far beyond the classroom causing its possible implications to be even more severe.
Technology’s advances over the past years have made cyberbullying a much more predominant problem.   Many students have access to the internet at home and cell phones, which increases the amount of cyberbullying.   With these resources so available, “93% of teens 12-17 go online” and “89% of online teens go online from home, and most of them go online from home most often” (Lenhart 2009).   This predominant use of the internet allows students to contact one another on a regular basis when they are not at school.   By using computers, “a bully can send harassing messages through e-mail or instant messaging; post obscene, insulting, and slanderous messages in chat rooms or online bulletin boards; or develop personal Web site to promote...