The Dangers of Cyberbullying

With an ever-growing number of people using social media it is important to protect the children from bullies. As much as they can be made aware of physical bullies, they must be aware of cyberbullies. The Internet has provided a new medium with which people can commit inappropriate, harmful activity. The damaging activities include, but are not limited to, cyber-hacking, cyber-stalking, and other forms of harmful behavior including bullying (Kowalski, Limber, & Agatston, 2012). The literature discusses cyberbullying instances that include all age groups of children from early childhood to adolescence. This paper will review the international cyberbullying literature for those varying age groups among minors. Cyberbullying is reported as an aggressive, intentional act distributed by an individual or group, using contact in an electronic medium, continuously and relentlessly against someone who cannot stand up for himself or herself easily (Smith et al., 2008). Menesini & Nocentini (2009) found cyberbullying is an imbalance of perceived power wherein victims have a hard time defending themselves from bullies. Cyberbullying research is still growing worldwide, focusing on the commonness of the occurrence, the relation between customary and electronic bullying, and on potential associations or risk matters related to cyberbullying (Menesini & Nocentini, 2009). Lenhart (2010) found that 68% of students use the Internet while at school (2010). Additionally, adolescents spend 17 hours per week on the Internet on average, with some spending as much as 40 hours or more (Center for Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School, 2010). With this ever increasing use of the Internet, cyberbullying is likely to be a growing problem. Due to the nature of cyberbullying, it can occur in many unique forms. Whether the origin is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other form of online communications, cyberbullying has begun to include the distribution of explicit videos and occurs via a range of websites, including online gaming sites (Rideout, Roberts, & Foehr, 2005). According to Katzer, Fetchenhauer, & Belschak (2009), nearly 75% of school-age minors experienced cyberbullying aggression at least once in the last year. Goebert, Else, Matsu, Chung-Do and Chang (2011) studied Hawaiian natives. They sampled 677 high school students and examined the relationship between cyberbullying and mental health. They reported that more than half (56.1%) of the students had been a victim of cyberbullying within the last year (Goebert et. al., 2011). Their research found that cyberbully victims were 2.5 times more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, had a higher instance of depression and were more than 3 times more likely to attempt suicide. Cyberbullying research and understanding is critical for many reasons. To begin with, adolescence is one of the most critical stages in the development of emotional and cognitive schemes and will shape and evolve the "adult personality" (Ortega et al., 2012). Secondly, cyberbullying is a difficulty faced by more than half of all high school students (Goebert et. al., 2011) that can result in mental health consequences, including abusing drugs and alcohol as well as suicidal tendencies (Baker & Helm, 2010). Baker and Helm (2010) also found that being bullied was widely accepted among youth, showing that most students expect to be harassed in one form or another. The implication of these research studies is that society is beginning to not only accept, but expect, electronic communication behaviors that are emotionally and physically damaging. CYBERBULLYING COMPARED TO PHYSICAL BULLYING Kowalski, Giumetti, Schroeder, and Lattanner (2014) found that while face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying share many similarities, there are differences. They found that cyberbullies feel anonymous, which gives them more of an incentive to be aggressive as they feel there will be no consequences. …