I think that it is safe to say mostly everyone has experienced some sort of bullying in the past. Some may even be experiencing it in the present. Bullying as evolved with humans and technology which is why we now have terms such as cyberbullying. “Cyberbullying is carried out in an electronic context through e-mail, text messaging, or social media venues like Facebook. It is distinctive from traditional bullying in that victims can be subjected to an attack almost anywhere and anytime, and without knowing the identity of the perpetrator—making it a particularly insidious type of bullying” (Gruman, 2016)
I think social media platforms have facilitated cyberbullying in many ways in recent years. It is easy for someone to hide behind their phone or computer screen and bully someone through the internet. This prevents them from engaging in face-to-face interactions that traditional bullying would have. They feel “more comfortable” using technology to carry out their bullying techniques.
Traditional bullying typically involved behaviors such as shoving, punching, kicking etc. Some people may find it easier to cyberbully because they simply cannot fight or lack some sort of physical dominance over most people. Also, with cyberbullying, I think it is much easier to get into someone’s head and hurt them worse than if you had just punched them. Cyberbullying tends to address more of the psychology of the victim/s.
Revenge, groupthink, and lack of empathy are a few reasons someone would bully or cyberbully another. Particularly, groupthink is a phenomenon where the mindset is “but everyone else is doing it too” and that can be more dangerous. Groupthink can lead to larger groups of bullies attacking an individual or much smaller group. There is also very little accountability in behaviors adopting groupthink because everyone in the group has the same mindset and accepts the behavior.
Gruman, Jamie, A. et al. Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Available from: MBS Direct, (3rd Edition). SAGE Publications, Inc. (US), 2016.
Hi,
Many bullies claim that they ‘didn’t intend to hurt’ or that they were simply ‘joking’ or ‘having fun’. It is clear, however, that the key element of bullying is this imbalance of power, and the inability of the victim to be able to prevent this unwanted behavior towards them.
If you have a positive school environment then it is possible to focus on those individuals who still pose a problem, and interventions can be implemented to target those individuals specifically. However, this theory is not ‘fool-proof’, and implementing the model requires a great deal of commitment (particularly to the school component), careful and slow introduction of changes and constant assessment of progress, which can often be frustrating for staff members. Indeed, a lack of consistency is almost always likely to be seen in schools, as different teachers employ different teaching styles. In this way, we expect that inconsistencies in implementation within a school might cause confusion to pupils about appropriate boundaries and the impact of their behaviors. This might subsequently allow bullying to continue.
Gruman, J.A.,Schneider, F.W., & Coutts, L.A. (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hi, I also do believe that cyber bullying is a form of bullying that is currently in need of a solution as soon as possible. Not just bullying, any kind of harassment in the internet needs an intervention strategy in the world of the internet today, for some of these posts are malicious to the extent that the perpetrator can get arrested if caught
I also found your analysis on the reason behind cyberbullying, in why the aggressor decides to target people. Revenge, groupthink, and lack of empathy are certainly reasons that they will do such acts. But I believe there are more complicated factors to this issue. I see cyberbullying as similar to crime, and some cases it is a crime that can become criminal and/or civil cases. In criminology, there is this thing called the crime triangle, which explains the reasons of why crime happens. The triangle is composed of the desire to commit the crime, the target, and the opportunity to commit the crime. In cyberbullying and your example, the desire is the revenge/lack of empathy, or other disorders the aggressor has, the target is the victim, and finally there’s the opportunity, which makes why cyberbullying a problem. The opportunity is the fact that the aggressor can hide themselves very easily, and it is hard for the school and the platform staff to regulate and catch the aggressor for what they did. A common intervention in actual crime is to reduce the opportunity for the perpetrator to commit crime, such as surveillance, so to stop cyberbullying, I think it starts from reducing opportunity for them to post malicious posts towards the victim.
Reference:
Crime Triangle Emergency 9 1 Police Non – Houston. Houston Police Department, https://www.houstontx.gov/police/pdfs/brochures/english/Personal_Safety.pdf.