Cyber-bullying: Modern youth bullying

What I knew/ what I needed to know

            “Piro, it seems like someone is stressing, are there people molesting you in the school or outside there, or are you being cyber-bullied?” I overhead the teacher asking a student as we waited in queue. I had accompanied my elder brother to his son’s school, where he was going to learn how his son was progressing at school, from his teachers. Questions started streaming through my mind. Are children being bullied in the cyber? By who? Is it the owner of the cyber, and why should he do that if he is being paid for his services? If it’s true he is bullying the children, how does that stress them? Why can’t the children use a different cyber café? Or, what does the teacher mean by cyber-bullying?

            I dint quite understand what cyber bullying was. I went through high school. I knew what physical bullying was all about and how it affected students. Students could be harmed physically or mentally by the others who considered themselves superior. The victims could even miss classes just to ensure that they don’t come across the bullies. I also understood well what cyber meant. It was something to do with computers or the information system. But interconnecting the two terms brought a word that I did not know the meaning.

            From my research, I expected to find out what cyber bullying really is. How different it was from physical bullying that I knew. I wanted to find out the reasons as to why children  cyberbully. I also wanted to discover why teachers, parents and guardians should learn more about it and how they might be able to deal with it once they discover that it’s affecting their children.

The story of my search

            My search began the moment the questions started streaming through my mind. After leaving the school compounds with my brother, I conducted the next search in the VCU library search where I got an article explaining the various forms of bullying. Cyber-bullying was one of the types listed.

            My search took about two weeks. I started my search finding out what cyber-bullying is from the teacher who said the word. He gave me a short explanation of what he thought it was. After visiting the VCU library search, I went online in search of “cyber bullying” in the Google search engine. It brought many sites, but I chose “education.com” site and carefully went through bullying online articles. After this, I went deeper to observe how long cyber-bullying has been going on, and I was able to obtain some statistics from an article in “stopbullying.gov”. I also visited a school along 901 Park Ave., where I discovered that most students experienced cyber bullying.

Search results

            According to the teacher, cyber bullying is the bullying that comes with the electronic gadgets such as the phones and the computers, where bullies use text messages, posts on social media or even emails to intimidate and harass their victims. According to the online article in the education.com site on facts about bullying, cyber bullying is done on the internet. It explained that threats, hurtful images, text messages and email messages posted in the networking sites, all form cyber-bullying. It also added that cyber-bullies often remain anonymous. The article in the stopbullying.gov indicated that in a survey carried out in 2010 on 37 schools of the southern United States, cell phones were the most used type of technology by the adolescents. The same report further indicated that almost 83% of youths used one cell phone at least weekly. The report indicated that cyber-bullying occurs most through cell phone in text messages.

            In the school where I conducted interviews, I learnt that 25 among 28 students observed or experienced cyberbullying on Instagram, a social media website. Some confessed to have seen others post mean images of each other on Instagram.

            In the education.com site, I learnt several reasons as to why children involve themselves in cyberbullying, that is, if their parents are not concerned with them, if they face aggression in the family, if they have peers who bully, if their schools lack rules on cyberbullying and also if they are not supervised in their schools.

            The results of my search have actually educated me that even as technology advances, it does so with both a positive and negative manner. It shows that as technology is passed to the kids, they are able to use it for their gain and at the same time, the same technology puts the kids in compromising situations. If the parents show that they are not involved on what happens with their kids and if the schools lack rules that govern how technology is used by these kids, then cyberbullying and its effects will continue being evident.

My growth as a researcher

            In the process of my research I have learnt to always have the guiding questions that guide me as I conduct the research. I was able to improve my writing skills. In future, I will have to be keen on the areas that I select to carry out my research. This will help me not to waste a lot of time in areas that are not useful. I also found that the articles from the websites are very helpful when it comes to answering the specific answers for the research.

Works Cited

“What does cyberbullying look like? | Education.com.” 2009. 2 Oct. 2013

<http://www.education.com/reference/article/what-is-cyberbullying/>

“Cyberbullying | StopBullying.gov.” 2012. 1 Oct.

<http://www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/>

www.cyberbullying.org -conceived of, and created by Bill Belsey …” 2005. 1 Oct. 2013

<http://www.cyberbullying.org/>

“What is Cyberbullying | StopBullying.gov.” 2012. 1 Oct. 2013 <http://www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/what-is-it/>