Exploratory Essay: Cyberbullying Spivey 1

Think of how many children and teens have access to computers and mobile phones in

today’s world. There’s a lot of them. Keep in mind the unlimited internet access that comes

along with all of these electronic devices. All the information they could ever need is right at

their fingertips. But, with the increasing use of texting, instant messaging, and social media,

there’s also a darker side to this internet world. Now, think of cyberbullying, and who all could

be affected by this type of bullying. Most individuals only think of kids or young adults, but

really, anyone can be a victim of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is very different from normal

bullying, and in the end can cause much more emotional damage in the end. With this type of

bullying, bullies are able to hide behind the screens and have a sense of security that they won’t

get caught. They can say whatever they want, and most of the time, it is completely anonymous.

So what problems are caused by cyberbullying? Well one of the major issues with cyberbullying

is that, most of the time, no one is aware that it is happening besides those involved. There is no

physical evidence that cyberbullying is occurring, so unless the children decide to talk about it,

or the parents are monitoring their children’s activity online, there is no way to know it is

occurring. Some other major issues include, depression and anxiety, changes in sleeping and

eating patterns, loss of interest in usually enjoyable activities, and increased health complaints.

These are some issues that can persist into adulthood if not resolved early. Children and teens

can also experience decreased academic achievement as well. GPAs drop, school participation

decreases, and this could eventually lead to an increase in absences and eventual drop outs as

well. Cyberbullying isn’t something that should be taken lightly, and these issues should be

handled early before they get too far out of control. In extreme situations, when cyberbullying is

left unresolved, some children end up committing suicide because they can’t handle the

harassment any longer. There are solutions to these problems. Parents need to talk to their
Exploratory Essay: Cyberbullying Spivey 2

children. Don’t just assume they’re okay. If something seems different, sit down and talk to

them. Communication is the best solution. Parents should also monitor their children’s activities

online. Check what games they’re playing, look into the frequently visited websites, and pay

attention to who they’re talking to and what is being said. Don’t just let them keep everything

bottled up until it gets too far out of control to handle. For this essay, I looked into a lot of

studies and journal articles focused mainly on cyberbullying with children, as well as a book

giving children and teens advice on how to stay safe online and ways they should behave when

they’re on the internet.

In the book, Cyberbullying: causes, consequences, and coping strategies, written by

Nicole L. Weber and William V. Pelfrey, Jr., data from middle and high school students was

collected to further explore the connections between the online and face-to-face environments. It

also discusses protocols, policies, and approaches to recognizing and dealing with cyberbullying.

With this generation, teenagers have unlimited access to internet and communication with others.

With calling, texting, and social networking, teenagers are given a constant communication with

their friends and peers. While social technology provides a space for friends to close the after

school physical difference, it can unfortunately become a space to spread rumors and socially

sabotage peers by inflicting fear, helplessness, and humiliation (Weber, Pelfrey Jr., 2014).

During the research period of this article, 11% of the students had reported being cyberbullied

over the past few months, and 72% reported an incident of cyberbullying at least once. Sending

private messages or texting threatening or harassing messages, or even commenting mean or

demeaning things on someone else’s status or pictures are all forms of cyberbullying teens and

children are facing today. But it’s not just through social media or cellphones, it can happen

through video games as well. Another article written by Mhana Khatib looked into cyberbullying
Exploratory Essay: Cyberbullying Spivey 3

within digital gaming and the effects violent video games have on teenagers. Digital space

allows attackers to more easily evade the consequences of their actions because children and

adolescents avoid involving adults in their experiences for a variety of reasons (Kahtib, 2018).

Children fear that involving adults will result in them loosing access to the network they are

using, and they see this as punishment. They also fear that the attacker cannot be found or that

the bullying cannot be proven. Cyberbullying can happen anywhere to anyone. These article also

support the fact that cyberbullying can happen right under the parent’s nose, and unless they are

brought into the situation, they may never know about it at all. I honestly didn’t know that 72%

of teenagers have experienced cyberbullying at least once in their lifetime.

This brings me into my next source, Who is involved in Cyberbullying…, written by Anja

Schultze-Krumbholz, Markus Hess, Jan Pfetsch, and Herbert Scheithauer. A degrading comment

on a social networking site, mean insults in a classroom chat, spreading an embarrassing picture

of a person to all of their friends – many forms of cyberbullying take place in a social context

and aim to humiliate some in front of others (Schultze-Krumbholz, Hess, Pfetsch, & Scheithauer,

2018). This article also looked into gender and cyberbullying roles, as well as age roles. Most

studies on gender in connection with cyberbullying focus on both the victim and bully role. The

results show no specific patterns based on gender. Some studies show boys to be the

cyberassistants while girls were more likely to be the cyberdefenders, and other studies showed

no gender differences at all. When it comes to bystanders, studies show that it is more likely for

children to step in and intervene in cyberbullying when adolescents stay out of it. Comparing 10

to 14 year olds and 15 to 19 year olds, there were no differences when it came to age. Both age

groups were most likely to either report doing nothing or helping the victim and least likely to

report joining in the cyberbullying when asked to pick from a list of actions they had taken when
Exploratory Essay: Cyberbullying Spivey 4

someone they know was cyberbullied (Schultze-Krumbholz, Hess, Pfetsch, & Scheithauer,

2018). Besides gender and age, this article also looked into self-esteem roles when it comes to

cyberbullying roles. The research shown in this article mainly focuses on the relation between

self-esteem and cyberbullying in victims. The investigated results found no association between

self-esteem and prosocial bystander behavior, but it did indicate that those adolescents with

lower self-esteem were more willing to step in and help the victims of bullying. When comparing

gender roles in cyberbullying, I really believed before doing this research that girls would be

more involved in cyberbullying than boys would. That was surprising, and it made me want to

look more into ways to prevent cyberbullying and tips for coping.

In the book written by Vanessa Rogers, she walks us through ways to help children and

teenagers stay safe online, while also teaching them the proper ways to act and behave online.

She also gives tips to parents on how to keep their children safe. A few tips include, but are not

limited to, being alert to your child being upset after using their phone or the internet, use

parental controls on computers and keep the passwords safe, encourage children to resist the urge

to retaliate, don’t accept friend requests unless you personally know the person, and contact the

police when serious threats are made and use saved evidence. Keep communication open and

encourage your children to talk to you about anything and everything. Rogers also provides good

advice for getting children to talk about cyberbullying. Ask the questions, “has someone done

something to upset you? Is it online, through email, or text? How often does it happen? Have you

ever been physically threatened? How can I help make it stop, without embarrassing you?”

These are all very good ways to get your child to open up and trust in the parent to help. We all

know that cyberbullying is such a growing epidemic, and we also know that unless children

speak up, there’s really no way to be aware of it unless we are paying attention. Communicate. It
Exploratory Essay: Cyberbullying Spivey 5

is very important to know what your children are getting into, before they get too far into where

they can no longer be helped. Don’t let the bullies rule the internet.

Now that we’ve seen the facts and read the research, is it a little easier to understand how

anyone can be a victim at any time? This generation is all about cell phones and internet. We live

on it and use it for almost everything we do in our lives. It could be very easy for someone to

slide into our text messages, email, or social media and pick on us or send a nasty rumor around.

Bullying in general is a growing epidemic, but cyberbullying is getting worse. Bullies believe

they’re safe hiding behind the screen, and as stated earlier, children don’t always speak up for

fear of repercussions. There are no pros to cyberbullying but the lists of cons goes on and on. I

believe people cyberbully because they are insecure about themselves, so they take it out on

others trying to bring them down as well. Cyberbullying can lead to a number of health

problems, depression, anxiety, increased feeling of loneliness, as well as decreased academic

achievement and involvement. Those bullied are also more likely to be driven to retaliate and

take extreme measures. Most of the school shooting involved kids who had been bullied as the

shooter. Bullying can also be linked to suicide, but this mainly occurs in very extreme cases

where the victims feel like there is no other option. Again, cyberbullying isn’t something that

should just be brushed under the table and forgot about. This is a real problem that needs a real

solution. Parents talk to your kids, and kids, don’t be afraid to speak up. We learned earlier that

children are afraid to speak up in fear that the adults won’t believe them or that their access to

the internet will be taken away as punishment. They also believe that the bully or attacker won’t

be caught because they hide behind the screen. But this isn’t always the case, speaking up could

help. If your child is acting differently after being online or being on their phone, talk to them
Exploratory Essay: Cyberbullying Spivey 6

and find out what’s wrong, don’t be a bystander and let this continue happening. Cyberbullying

causes many problems, but open communication could help solve a lot of them.

Works Cited

Barlett, C. P., & Fennel, M. (2018). Examining the relation between parental ignorance and

youths’ cyberbullying perpetration. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 7(4), 547–

560. https://doi-org.login.library.coastal.edu:8443/10.1037/ppm0000139

Barlett, C. P., Heath, J. B., Madison, C. S., DeWitt, C. C., & Kirkpatrick, S. M. (2019). You’re

not anonymous online: The development and validation of a new cyberbullying

intervention curriculum. Psychology of Popular Media Culture. https://doi-

org.login.library.coastal.edu:8443/10.1037/ppm0000226

Dennehy, R., Cronin, M., & Arensman, E. (2019). Involving young people in cyberbullying

research: The implementation and evaluation of a rights‐based approach. Health

Expectations, 22(1), 54–64. https://doi-

org.login.library.coastal.edu:8443/10.1111/hex.12830

KHATIB, M. (2018). Digital Game, Cyberbullying and Risk for Teenagers. Social Research

Reports, 10(3), 19–27. Retrieved from

http://login.library.coastal.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dir

ect=true&db=sih&AN=133549760&site=eds-live

Patterson, V. C., Closson, L. M., & Patry, M. W. (2019). Legislation awareness, cyberbullying

behaviours, and cyber-roles in emerging adults. Canadian Journal of Behavioural

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Science / Revue Canadienne Des Sciences Du Comportement, 51(1), 12–26. https://doi-

org.login.library.coastal.edu:8443/10.1037/cbs0000111

PAUNOVIĆ, N. (2018). Cyberbullying of Children: Challenges of Victim

Support. Temida, 21(2), 249–268. https://doi-

org.login.library.coastal.edu:8443/10.2298/TEM1802249P

Rogers, V. (2010). Cyberbullying : activities to help children and teens to stay safe in a texting,

twittering, social networking world. London ; Philadelphia : Jessica Kingsley Publishers,

2010. Retrieved from

http://login.library.coastal.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dir

ect=true&db=cat01539a&AN=ccuc.b1373286&site=eds-live

Schultze-Krumbholz, A., Hess, M., Pfetsch, J., & Scheithauer, H. (2018). Who is involved in

cyberbullying? Latent class analysis of cyberbullying roles and their associations with

aggression, self-esteem, and empathy. Cyberpsychology, 12(4), 1–21. https://doi-

org.login.library.coastal.edu:8443/10.5817/CP2018-4-2

Van Hee, C., Jacobs, G., Emmery, C., Desmet, B., Lefever, E., Verhoeven, B., … Hoste, V.

(2018). Automatic detection of cyberbullying in social media text. PLoS ONE, 13(10), 1–

22. https://doi-org.login.library.coastal.edu:8443/10.1371/journal.pone.0203794

Weber, N. L., & Pelfrey, W. V. (2014). Cyberbullying : causes, consequences, and coping

strategies. El Paso, Texas : LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC, 2014. Retrieved from

http://login.library.coastal.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dir

ect=true&db=cat01539a&AN=ccuc.b1937812&site=eds-live