Why is cyberbullying more dangerous than traditional bullying

Although similar to “traditional” bullying in terms of form and technique, cyberbullying is immensely different from “old school” bullying and can be even more devastating.

Table of Contents Show

Is Cyberbully Worst than Face to Face Bullying?
Where Does Bullying Take Place?
What Causes Bullying?
References

For starters, victims in many cases do not know who the bully is, or why they are being bullied. Cyberbullies hide behind a computer screen and maybe even behind a false identity so that they will not be discovered, giving them a further sense of control over the situation as the victim feels more helpless.

Secondly, the hurtful actions of a cyberbully are viral. When someone is cyberbullied, others on the same medium can know about it instantaneously, and those others will spread the word, humiliating the victim even more than he/she already was by the bully. A large number of people can be involved in a cyber-attack, which makes the victim feel that everyone knows about it, further complicating the situation for the victim.

Thirdly, it is often easier to be cruel using technology than to be so face to face. This is because the bully does not have to see the immediate reaction of the target. Some teens don’t recognize the harm they are causing because they are sheltered from the victim’s response. So although a bully in school may be reluctant to say something cruel to someone else, when they are online, that hesitation just isn’t there.

And lastly, many adults don’t have the technological know-how to keep track of what teens are up to online. A victim’s experience may be missed and a bully’s action may be left unchecked. Many adults, even after they identify bullies, find themselves unprepared to adequately respond.

So although cyberbullying may seem like regular bullying, there are many significant differences that may make cyberbullying even more dangerous than regular “traditional” bullying.

ETCB is a rapidly expanding organization, and as such we welcome questions about the company and most importantly, about cyber bullying. Whether you are personally being cyberbullied or you know someone who is being cyberbullied, please feel free to contact us in the form below and we will be sure to provide further assistance. Also, if you are in need of any further information about our organization, such as how can you participate or how can you make a difference, leave a message below and ETCB will respond as soon as possible.

Many teens consider online bullying to be worse than face-to-face bullying, a survey of teenagers has found.

After all, cyberbullying can happen around the clock, it’s relentless, and it’s driven by crowd behaviour – in fact, you can consider it a horrible manifestation of crowd-sourcing.

The survey of 4720 teenagers around the world found that people – particularly young people – can find it tough to show support for friends who are being cyberbullied, given that they’re afraid of being bullied themselves or simply struggle to find the right words.

Vodafone commissioned the survey from internet-based market research firm YouGov.

18% of the teens surveyed – nearly one in five – reported that they’ve been cyberbullied. Of that group, 18% experienced suicidal thoughts.

More than half of teens said that they consider cyberbullying to be worse than face-to-face bullying, and 43% consider it it to be a bigger problem for young people than drug abuse.

More of the findings:

41% said cyberbullying made them feel depressed, and 41% said it made them feel helpless
26% felt “completely alone”
21% stayed away from school
25% closed down their social media accounts
38% said they didn’t tell their parents or guardians, as they felt ashamed (32%), scared their parents would get involved (40%), or worried what their parents might do (36%).

Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and the psychologist adviser on the Pixar film Inside Out, said, in a video put out in conjunction with the survey release, that research has shown how friend-to-friend support is one of the most successful ways of preventing and addressing cyberbullying.

But again, young people are often hampered by fear of being targeted, and they simply don’t know what to say.

Of those surveyed, 43% said they’d find it hard to support a friend who’d been bullied on social media, as they “could not find the right words” to show support.

They do know how to text, though. Keltner said that emojis can help to tell victims of cyberbullying that they’re not alone.

72% of teens said they’d be likely to use an emoji to express compassion or support for friends being cyberbullied.

Vodafone’s on it. The UK-based telecom on Tuesday came out with a new set of emojis, vetted by the teenage survey respondents, to show compassion and support.

The idea was suggested to the company by anti-bullying ambassador Monica Lewinsky.

Of the teens’ two favourite sets of emojis, one shows hands silhouetted in an embrace against a heart image. The other set shows two hands, of different colours, clasping each other.

The images are part of a donation campaign from Vodafone Foundation, which is the telecom’s philanthropic arm.

The foundation also announced that it will help raise funds for anti-bullying NGOs by donating 10p (14 cents) for every Twitter retweet or public Facebook like of Vodafone’s image of what it’s calling the #BeStrong emojis, for a total donation of up to £100,000 (€137,000, $152,525).

Vodafone is also talking to the major emoji app and social media platforms with regards to featuring the emojis on their platforms in the near future.

Can a simple emoji actually make a difference to somebody who’s being cyberbullied?

An emoji is just a whisper: the bare minimum amount of contact you can make with somebody.

In the best of all possible worlds, we’d all stand up for our friends when they’re being bullied. We’d intervene, and we’d give full voice in compassion and support.

But in the world we actually live in, an emoji is a much louder, better alternative to the response cyberbullying victims too often get.

Too often, all they hear is silence.

Bring on the support emojis.

Image of girl being cyberbullied courtesy of Shutterstock.com

Is Cyberbullying Worse than Face to Face Bullying?

Abstract

Bullying has always been a topic that is discussed in and out of school and workplaces. Back then when there wasn’t the internet, there was traditional bullying. The bullying would happen anywhere. It occurred in school, at work, or in the neighborhood. The traditional bullying would consist of hitting, pushing, tripping, and destroying property. Cyberbullying didn’t exist until the late 1990s. When the internet was born, it gave bullying another source to harass or put someone down. Bullying is never acceptable, but which type of bullying is the worst?

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Is Cyberbully Worst than Face to Face Bullying?

Bullying puts people down in general regardless of which type of bullying it is. With traditional bullying or also known as face to face bullying, a person may be able to escape. For example, when someone is at school and they are being bullied, then when they go home their ok. With cyberbullying, there isn’t an escape. It doesn’t matter where a person may be because the bullying will be through a device.

Where Does Bullying Take Place?

Bullying can take place anywhere. If a person goes to a place where there is a lot of people, they have a chance of getting bullied. Bullying takes place at school, at work, and even online. Other places where bullying may occur is in the neighborhood, at park, at work, and in the house.

When a person hears the word bullying, the first place a person may think of is school. The statistics of bullying in school are high. It is measured that about 160,000 students don’t go to school every day due to the fear of being bullied. Statistics say that around 30% of students admit that they have bullied someone in school. Around 33% of students admitted that they have been the victim of being bullied. Around 70% of students have said that they witnessed bullying.

Bullying occurs often in the workplace. Bullying in the workplace is defined as repeated mistreatment of an employee by one or more employees (Namie, G. 2017). Statistics have said that 19% of people have admitted that they’ve been bullied at work. In the United States alone it is measured up to 60.4 million workers getting bullied. The reasons for bullying are mainly gender and race. As well as the boss or manager bullying their employees. More than 50% of the bullies in the workplace are bosses.

Online bullying is also called cyberbullying. Before the internet was born traditional bullying was already a problem. When the internet existed the bullies had another source to bully. The bullies hid behind the screen, sometimes with a fake identity to harass and put someone down. Around 34% of students have admitted that they are the victims of being bullied online. Around 16% of students have been bullied by an unknown person.

What Causes Bullying?

Bullying is never a positive thing. But in everything that someone does there’s a reason. There are many reasons why a person will choose to bully others. A reason maybe insecurity or jealousy, stress or trauma, and the bullies may have been a victim of bullying themselves.

A person may bully another person because of insecurity. A person may bully another student because of insecurity and jealousy. A person may not feel or have confidence in themselves so they bully someone else and gain control over that person they feel powerful. When a person has a group that supports and applaud them for bullying they feel a sense of confidence and power. When a person compares themselves to others from how successful, how well known, how wealthy another person may be the sense of jealousy creeps in. If they constantly are comparing they will put themselves in a negative environment so that will cause them to bully others.

Stress and trauma also cause bullying. In the household when parents are going through a divorce, a family member passed away and lack of attention due to a new addition to the family like a newborn baby. Some people may experience parents being alcoholics, drug addicts, and abusive. There are ways to reduce stress and places to find help. Some can’t find a way to cope with the stress and trauma so the end results are bullying.

Sometimes the bullies have been the victim of themselves. When a person has been the victim, they will bully others as a way to defend themselves. They want to become resistant to what they are going through. There are also places people have little access to no access to education at all. Places like that may cause students to think that it’s ok for them to act a certain way or say certain things.

Cause and Effect of Bullying.

Bullying isn’t just bullying. It’s not just a word here and there or slap and punches here and there. Bullying has a huge effect on anyone that is affected. Effects may be from physical pain and changes, emotional stress, and mental stress.

With bullying the first thing a person may think of is being physical. From slapping, punching, hitting and kicking. All of which can cause physical pain. The victim will feel pain in the places that they’ve been hurt. Others may be able to physically see the bruises from where they’ve been hurt. The color of the bruises can also indicate how long ago they’ve been hurt. There are physical changes such as constant headaches due to stress, and weight changes from gaining a lot of weight or losing a lot of weight.

Bullying can cause emotional distress. Even though emotional distress isn’t as noticeable, it still exists. The actions of emotional bullying are verbally saying things that are belittling another person. Through emotional bullying, it will cause another person to feel as if their feelings don’t matter. Short term effects will be confusion, fear, and feeling ashamed. Long term effects will be having constant nightmares, mood swings, and racing heartbeat.

Mental stress is one of the effects on bullying. The effects of mental stress are different for everyone. Some people know how to cope others don’t. The effects can either be short term or last for a really long time if not forever. Mental stress from bullying has been linked to suicide. Some of the effects of mental stress are insomnia, anxiety, depression, psychosomatic symptoms, PTSD, and substance abuse.

What is Cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying is using an electronic device to bully another person. With cyberbullying, everything happens online. It can be through text, email, and social media. It can be in different ways like commenting on a person’s post, or video in a threatening way. Cyberbullying is being behind the screen and sending other people threatening messages and harassing another person.

Cyberbully happens 100% online. Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, WeChat, Tumblr, text messages, and emails are common places where cyberbullying can occur. Absolutely any place that is online where a person posts something for the world to see there is a possibility for cyberbullying to occur.

On social media, it is a place where people constantly post their daily lives. Posts from food, pets, family, friends, kids, work. People are constantly sharing their lives on the internet. When the world sees it, an opinion forms. Some people like it others don’t. Some people end up becoming envious and they have to speak up and say things to put another person down.

Cyberbullying is negativity behind the computer screen. Some people even have the option of being an anonymous person and start threatening and harassing people online. Whatever a person posts online another person can take it by downloading it and create memes or even edit videos to make a person appear a certain way.

What is Face to Face Bullying?

Face to face bullying or known as traditional bullying is physically meeting another person and bullying them. Everything happens in real time. With cyberbullying, a person can’t get physically hurt because it’s through a device. With face to face bullying, a person can get physically hurt.

Traditional bullying happens in the outside world. It can happen at school, at work, in the neighborhood, at the park or even at home. Meeting someone physically with the intention of hurting them in any kind of way in the outside world is face to face bullying.

Traditional bullying causes emotional distress, mental stress, and physical pain. The physical pain can be caused by the hitting, kicking, punching, slapping, or any harsh physical contact between the bully and the victim. Physical pain can also be caused by the tension that the body has due to the stress caused by bullying. That physical pain may be headaches, migraines, muscle tension, as well as digestive issues like stomach pain.

While cyberbullying is through a device, a person can completely shut down the device to completely block all of the negativity, harassment, and threat that they receive. Traditional bullying is getting attacked in real time. It is in that moment where everything is happening. A person can run away but the attack still can follow. With a device, the only time a person sees the negativity is when the device is on.

Age Groups Affected.

Bullying can start at a very young age. The age can start as young as toddlers. At that age they don’t know what they are doing is wrong. If that behavior continues to the age where they start going to school, then in it will be a bigger problem. In school, bullying can start when kids are just in kindergarten which is around ages five and six. Cyberbullying can start at the age of eleven or twelve. Workplace bullying can start at the age of 15 when students are working part-time

At the age of five or six, when kids are in kindergarten they start figuring out certain things. They are learning different skills like being emotional and showing certain emotions, cognitive skills, social interaction and much more. At that age, kids are mimicking what they see. If kids are surrounded by positive energy then they will express positive energy. If kids are surrounded by negative energy then they will express negative energy. At the age of five and six, it’s more noticeable to see kids bullying each other. It can start off kids excluding other kids from a game, and kids can start saying mean comments to one another.

Cyberbullying usually starts around the ages of eleven and twelve. That is the age where parents allow kids to have an electronic device because kids are older and there are more activities that kids are involved in. If parents allow kids to have an electronic device that includes social media, cyberbullying can also start at a certain age that parents allow them to use social media.

Workplace bullying starts at the age of 15 when students are legally allowed to work part-time. The bullying can be from another coworker, manager, and boss. It can be in different ways that a person may not notice. The actions of bullying can be done in a joking matter. For example a person may say something mean but right after says “just kidding.” In the workplace, around 80% said that they have been verbally harrassed. Around 30% of women and 15% of men admitted that they have been sexually harrassed in the workplace. Around 75% of people that have been sexually harassed are too scared and embarrassed to admit the fact that they have been sexually harassed.

Results

Bullying is still a big problem in 2019. Before the 1990s, the only bullying problem that people faced was traditional bullying. Either it was physical, verbal, emotional, and sexual. Now bullying doesn’t just start and end at school or work. It is carried home due to cyberbullying. The question now is, is cyberbullying worst than face to face bullying.

Cyberbullying is worst than face to face bullying. The reason being is, cyberbullying is constantly happening. Regardless of where a person is at. Even though cyberbullying isn’t as physical as face to face bullying, the side effects of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying affects around 10% of kids and 80% of teeangers in the United States alone.