Bullying

Bullying rears it’s ugly head in many circumstances. The workplace, in school, online, pretty much anywhere where people are gathered in some type of collective setting. It affects many and often has it’s reasons deeply rooted in pain, guilt, fear, and sadness.

Cyberbullying has become a bit more prevalent because of social media and SNS. People are finding easier ways to bully others online or through various platforms. This ease however is being made more difficult in places like South Korea – one of the top securest IT infrastructure countries in the world. In order to register for a website, social media, online forum, etc, they’re considering a system where users would have to submit their real name and input their National ID. The reason behind this is largely due to the increasing suicide rate of celebrities, popular figures and teenagers as an unfortunate result of cyberbullying. This problem is also evident as an increasing issue in the US as well. Espcially now with the coronoavirus keeping people in their homes and many people (mainly kids) on the inter-webs.

There was a case where a guy found out who his bully was by tracking the IP address and doing a little investigative work only to realize it was his friend or “friend”. After he confronted her, he asked her why. She essentially said it was because of jealousy more that hate and she was quite apologetic for her actions (Marcus, 2020).

Its seems many times that bullying is the occurrence of the the aggressor (the bully) being self-absorbed, insecure, and having low self-esteem. The victim is often ostracized and made to feel these same feelings because of the bully’s projection of their own issues onto them. Often times, the issues the bully has roots back to their rearing as a child. If they were not given enough attention from their parents, they would typically look for other ways to gain attention. Unfortunately, its usually negative attention because that may have been the only thing that worked in the past.

Most times, just saying “stop” or “that’s hurtful” isn’t enough because the aggressor doesn’t care. There are more alternative ways that different organizations are working to prevent this type of behavior and calling on parents to monitor their kids to make sure they’re not the victim, bully or witness. In an increasingly technological world, what is the best way to tackle this issue?

 

Reference

Marcus, D. (2020, March 1). I was cyberbullied-and I fought back. Retrieved April 11,      2020, from https://www.dailydot.com/irl/i-found-my-cyberbully-and-fought-back/

3 comments

  1. We should all spend more time learning cultural competency and appreciating diversity. Perhaps these things would fix some of the bullying issues we face today. Learning empathy and appreciating our differences would have to improve conditions between one another, even with young children. Teaching children to appreciate one another and enjoy the differences we have may be the key to aiding people in decreasing bullying behavior.

  2. You’re right that bullying is everywhere. It saddens me that it’s still going on till this day, especially nowadays where technology consumes most people’s lives and everyone, including younger children are on the internet/social media. Our textbook defines cyberbullying as beinga type of bullying that is “carried out in an electronic context through e-mail, text messaging, or social media venues like Facebook” (Gruman, Schneider, Coutts, 2016). Not only do they get bullied at school, but they come home, just to be bullied online. Sometimes, individuals hide behind their computer/phone screens while they cyberbully. That’s so interesting about what you wrote about South Korea. I’m glad that there are places that are taking bullying seriously and not brushing it off like it’s nothing.
    It’s very true that bullying can lead to suicides. The textbook says that bullying can lead to different things like “depression, anxiety, poor performance at school, stress, lowered self-esteem, and thoughts of suicide” (Gruman, Schneider, Coutts, 2016). I know several individuals that were bullied and thought that the only solution out of escaping their bullies was to take their own life. Not only is it sad that they passed away, but sad as well for the families and friends that they left behind, who were devastated and wee left with so many questions and confusion. You’re right that a lot of the times, telling a bully to stop might not work. There are bullies that could feed on feeling that power even further. As far as how to tackle this issue, I definitely think that there needs to be a lot more awareness brought to it. Trying to figure out the underlying reasonings behind why the bully acts the way they do could possibly pinpoint the source of their behavior and maybe help them get out of them behaving like that. This way, it’s not only helping the victim of bullying, but helping the bully better themselves as well so that they don’t continue to bully anyone else in the future.

    Works Cited:
    Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

  3. Trevor Jay Zimmerman

    Thank you for sharing this blog post and enlightening us about the technology conditions South Korea has imposed and implemented. I believe this is a great technique and tool that the United States could also implement to control the amount of cyber bullying we see. If the United States required more information and possibly a SSN to be given while signing up for an online site it could help monitor and track those who become bullies.
    If the government could create and enforce stricter laws on bully and could actually be able to track and monitor who is saying what there could be more intense punishments, including fines, citations, loss of internet access and even jail time.
    This leads to another problem, the big brother affect. Should the government be able to control and monitor what we say online? Should they be able to track and monitor every online social media user?
    I believe yes if this helps us as society weed out the bullies and keep the internet a clean, friendly and bully free place for everyone to enjoy and feel safe.

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