The Dark Side of Social Media: Cyber Bullying

There has been a rapid rise of social networking sites on the Internet created by the growing access and use of electronic communication tools such as e-mail, websites, instant messaging, webcams, chat rooms, social networking sites, blogs, and text messages (Mishna, Saini & Solomon 2009, p. 1222). The majority of youth today view these electronic communication tools as “critical tools for their social life” (Kowalski, Limber, & Agatston, 2008, p. 2). However while the youth become more dependent on these digital devices, they are opening up the opportunity of cyber bully attacks.

What makes cyber bullying distinct is the use of electronic communication technology as the means through which to threaten, harass, embarrass, or socially exclude (Mishna, Saini & Solomon 2009, p.1222). The psychological and emotional outcomes of cyber bullying are similar to those of real-life bullying. The difference is, real-life bullying often ends when school ends. For cyber bullying, technology has extended schoolyard bullying to home computers and cell phones, there is no escape.

Children expect to feel safe and protected from bullying in their own homes. Consequently the cyber bullying they experience while on the computer at home, and often in their own bedroom, may feel particularly invasive and have weighing effects both physically and emotionally.

Cyber bullying is affecting over 85% of teens across the world, and its effects range from depression, withdrawal, and even suicide (End cyber bullying 2013). This makes cyber bullying particularly harmful and in the case of at least five young people who have committed suicide, so deadly, is the nature and malice reach of electronic medium (Phillips 2011).

Cyber bullies have little or no regard for the social rules of the cyber world, or the physical world for that matter. What’s frightening is that the laws surrounding the cyber world have not always been clear and they are still being define, redefined and rewritten today (Hirst & Harrison, 2007). Susan McLean of Cyber Safety Solutions explains how Twitter Incorporated, like many other social media sites, is based in California and only responds to requests for user information via the American courts (Bowden, 2013):

“If you're dealing with abuse on Twitter that is serious enough to warrant police intervention and you go to the police here, well then they need to obtain a Commonwealth warrant that then gets converted and gets served. So it is a process; it's not a streamlined process, and I know the Federal Government have called for Twitter to set up an office in Australia to assist Australian law enforcement. That's yet to happen.”

The internet’s power of anonymity allows individuals to feel more comfortable in their homes with little fear of repercussions or of being traced, enabling aggressors to threaten, harass, or denigrate others and to even assume a new persona or character online. The internet’s anonymity factor also permits some individuals who might be too timid to bully others in “real life” to do so in the virtual world.

 

References

Bowden, T 2013 ‘Cyber bullying cases prompt call for new laws’ ABC News accessed 13 January 2014, < http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-08/cyber-bullying-cases-prompt-call-for-new-laws/4678196>.

End to cyber bullying 2013, 'Delete cyber bullying', 20 January, viewed 16 February 2014, <http://youtu.be/bfT2qqrqzgo>.

Hirst, M and Harrison, J 2007, Communication and New Media: from broadcast to narrowcast, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Australia.

Mishna, F, Saini, M & Solomon, S 2009, 'Ongoing and online: children and youth's perceptions of cyber bullying', Children and Youth Services Review, vol. 31, issue 12, pp. 1222-1228, <http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/science/article/pii/S0190740909001200>.

Kowalski, R, Limber, S, & Agatston, P W (2008). Cyber bullying. Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Phillips, S 2011 Coping with Cyberbullying: the use of technology to terrify, accessed 3 January 2014, < http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/blogs/coping-cyberbullying-use-technology-terrify>.