The Effects of Bullying and Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying basically refers to a type of bullying that usually occurs through the digital devices such as phones, tablets and computers. Normally this type of bullying occurs through SMS or rather text messages, phone applications or sometimes it may involve the social media platforms including and not limited to Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram. Moreover, this type of bullying is commonly experienced by the young people and when it involves adults, it may yield to illegal cyber-stalking or cyber-harassment and in fact, a person may be charged for causing it and he or she may pay dearly in the hands of the authorities since cyber-harassments is, but a crime that have legal consequences as it also involve jail terms.

According to David Fagan, Lawyer, BizLegal.eu, “Cyberbullying is the use of inappropriate behavior, strength or influence, whether directly or indirectly, and whether verbal, written, physical or through displays of or use of imagery, symbols or otherwise, to intimidate, torment, threaten, harass or embarrass others, using the Internet or other technology, such as mobile telephones” (Smith, Peter K., et al, 5)

Precisely, cyberbullying entails a lot of activities such as sending of text messages, posting or even sharing of negative information, sharing of harmful or mean content all about somebody else. Succinctly, cyberbullying may entail sharing of personal or rather privet information concerning somebody else which in turn may cause embarrassment, or humiliation to that person in the end. Cyberbullying can be manifested in various forms including and not limited to exclusion, Harassment, Outing, Cyber-stalking, Frapping, Fake Profiles, Dissing, Trickery, Masquerading, Trolling and Cat-fishing this as explain in the preceding. Harassment is a one of the most common forms of cyber-bullying hat the victims of cyber-bullying usually complain about. It involves a situation whereby the bully sends offensive or rather malicious messages to people or groups of people without their consent. Moreover, according to (Slonje, Robert, and Peter Smith, 15) this type of bullying is usually associated with the bully sending multiple and offensive messages and they could involve an array of contexts such as threats, insults, sending of rude messages. This type of bullying may then lead to physical harassment in real world scenarios.

Cyberbullying may also be manifested inform of exclusion whereby it would entail the character of leaving out one single individual from a group function. This type of bullying is usually experienced in the social media platforms. Exclusion cyberbullying would therefore typically refer to a situation whereby an individual is left out from participating in a group conversation or general activities taking place in the sites. Another common form of cyberbullying is Masquerading a form of cyberbullying that entails ghost harassment ("5 Different Types Of Cyberbullying - End To Cyber Bullying Organization (ETCB)"). Basically this type of ‘Ghost cyberbullying’ typically refers to a form of cyberbullying that involves the bully creating a fake account such as fake Facebook account then harassing the other fellows. Usually, this type of cyber-bullying involves the bully who tends to hide his or her identity probably to tease the person or friend whom if they were to be real, would actually recognize them. Moreover, this type of bullying s common among friends who wants to blackmail each other or rather betray one another. Flaming is another commonly experienced form of cyber-bullying that is normally experienced in the social media platforms. This form of cyber-bullying entails fights that are often exchanged in the social media platforms.

Normally platforms such as facebooks are commonly known for people to exchange insults and criticisms, these insults, abuses, criticisms all have an effect to the innocent though wrongly accused individuals and in the end, they would feel much more bullied. Normally flaming is a form of public cyberbullying that always employ the use of harsh, or rather dirty language and images elicit videos. These elicit videos, images and harsh language may effectively affect the innocent or rather wrongly accused individuals. Moreover, another substantial form of cyber-bullying is ‘outing’. This form of bullying is usually very shameful and quite unfortunate in that they always happen when least expected ("5 Different Types Of Cyberbullying - End To Cyber Bullying Organization (ETCB)"). Basically it involves a situation whereby the bully shamelessly and mindlessly exposes personal or rather privet information, pictures or videos of someone in public. For example, a bully may decide to publicly expose the details of some individual in the social media platforms like Facebook. This may end up fostering humiliations, laughter and criticisms, of the victimized individuals. Therefore, outing can significantly demonstrate cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying is more common in high schools and in colleges as well as in public forums such as the social media platforms like in whatsapp and Facebook groups. The chief reason as to why this type of bullying is commonly incurred in high schools and colleges is because in such places, there are a lot of competitions and jealousies that are brought about by puberty stage. Normally cyberbullying cuts across both genders. Thus to say, Cyber bullying affects people from all walks of life, including children, teens and adults who all feel very distressed, humiliated and alone when bullied online. There are a myriad of ways to reduce cyberbullying in the internet some of them include Holding Bullies Accountable (Smith, Peter K., et al,) Holding bullies accountable for their actions and imposing heavy punishments on them will significantly control cyberbullying. By doing so, the bullies will continually learn lessons that the rate at which they will be bullying people will substantially go down. Also, educating oneself would substantially help reduce incidences of cyberbullying. Some bullies are just so ignorant and they end up bullying without even knowing. Taking time to educate oneself may eventually help a person understand that cyberbullying is indeed inappropriate and the negative effects it impose to its victims are ill as well.

Moreover, setting up privacy controls on confidential information should be considered so as to limit whomever might be tempted to view or abduct our profiles. Basically, restricting privacies entails restricting people who can see your online profiles to only trusted friends. This will significantly reduce cyber-bullying. Other strategies such as being cautious about messages we send to people, raising awareness, pausing and reading before posting and more also significantly demonstrate how cyberbullying can substantially be reduced. In conclusion, cyberbullying is bad and very inappropriate and should be significantly reduced to better the current generation and the future generation as well. Cyberbullying, can be manifested in many forms such as harassment, outing, flaming, exclusion and more. This papers seeks to highlight some of the few mechanisms that a substantially help reduce cyberbullying this as exhaustively illustrated in the preceding.

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