Cyberbullying Effect

Introduction

Cyberbullying is defined as bullying through electronic mail, online chats, on a website or a gaming site, or through messages or images sent to an electronic device. Why is this topic interesting? Cyberbullying has become an increasingly problematic issue in today’s society, to the point where one in five Australian teenagers were reported to have received hateful messages through their mobile devices or the Internet. (Robinson).

Even though everyone online is prone to cyber bullying, studies have revealed a few factors, like the increased use of technology, anonymity and internal motivations, that contribute to this act and the tendency in people to carry out cyber bullying (Gordon). Studies such as the one done by Virginia

A group of researchers examined the reason why a person cyberbullies. They found that since cyberbullies are not aware of the effect of their actions as they are not physically with their victim. Most of the cases are perceived to be influenced by the cyberbully’s emotional state. The emotional state blankets the cyberbully wanting revenge, making themselves feel better, boredom, jealousy and etc. (Varjas) Elizabeth examined the motivations that lead to cyberbullying. She found that 54% of female cyberbully perpetrators feeling angry or they wanted to get back at someone when they cyberbully. However, the numbers change when the gender differs. In contrast to females, 38% of males cyberbully because they wanted revenge or they felt angry. (Englander) Research examined the reasons why people cyberbully. The study revealed that the number one cause of cyberbullying cases were the perpetrators were feeling angry and wanted revenge against someone. This cause was selected by 58% of the respondent (“Cyberbullying

Anonymity and internal motivators are also partly responsible. Also, even though the mentioned studies on the effectiveness of cyber bullying methods show contradicting views, the study done by Harris Research is less reliable in this case as it is done based on what students think will work. On the other hand, the study done by the University of Nevada was based on real-life cyberbullying prevention programs. Thus, the latter is to be deemed more reliable and informative here as the results are based on prior experiences, and not preconceived notions. The demographic differences also signify that there is no direct relation between gender and cyberbullying cases and race does not play a major role in affecting