What+are+the+causes+and+effects+of+cyberbullying?

Caralee, A. (2010). Cyberbullying how to make it stop. //Instructor 120//, //2//, 44-9. This article discussed the basics of Cyberbullying, and how most of this bullying incidents occur at home, the problems spill over into the classroom. This article explains that we need to teach and promote respect in our schools. The article explains that approximately 20 percent of students admitted to having cyberbullied, and posting mean or hurtful comments and spreading rumors online was the most common complaint in the random survey of 4,400 students ages 10 to 18 in February 2010 (Caralee, 2010). Cyberbullying is more common among middle school aged children, especially adolescent girls. In a study, 25.8 percent of girls had experienced cyberbullying as compared to 16% boys. It was also concluded that girls are more likely to spread rumors and hurtful words, while boys are more likely to post hurtful pictures and videos. The study also showed that girls are more likely to react to cyberbullying with frustration, while boys are often more scared of cyberbullying due to the fact that it may become physical. Cyberbullying is very complicated type of bullying, because the bully can remain anonymous and unaware of the pain inflicted on the target (Caralee, 2010). In a way, the bully is “hiding behind a keyboard”. This allows students who would not normally bully, to do so because they can be protected. Cyberbullying is extremely dangerous and can result in violence, depression, and even suicide. As Caralee states in the article, “once something goes viral, the harassment is continuous because it is shared, repeated, and nearly impossible to erase.” The school functions as the center of the students’ lives, when cyberbullying occurs at home, it effects the entire school environment. Students cannot focus on their studies and some avoid attending school. Experts say that banning technology is not the answer, and that we should be teaching children to be good digital citizens. If schools are using technology to deliver education and instructions, then they have the responsibility to educate students so they use it correctly.

I found this article to be extremely informative and explanatory on the issue of cyberbullying. It portrayed cyberbyllying as a problem in our schools today, and gave steps for teachers and parents to “step up”. The steps include taking it seriously, recognizing the signs, asking students to report it, respond to the incident, find right response, and get parents involved. I thought that the statement involving students hiding behind the anonymous nature of technology was a great point and seems to be the biggest problem with cyberbullying as a whole. Children do need to be taught respectful ways to use technology, especially with all of the new technological advances we are seeing today.

Siegle, D. (2010). Cyberbullying and sexting: technology abuse of the 21st century. //Gifted Child Today//, //2//, 14-16 This article discusses the ubiquitous nature of the technology in the 21st century and how today’s children are presented with a whole new set of safety concerns. Schools have tried many different approaches to stop this form of bullying within the school day by installing filtering software such as blockers and firewalls. Although these efforts have slightly decreased the problem, kids are still finding ways around them, and the majority of the bullying occurs outside of the school. This article asks the question, “How does giftedness relate to bullying and being bullied?” It then goes on to state that in a recent survey of fifth graders, academically gifted students and general education students were less likely than students with mild disabilities to be viewed as bullies by their peers (Siegle, 2010). The article also discussed the key factors of being a bully, the findings revealed that aggressive and popular peers were more likely to bully, while social isolates were most likely to be bullied. The article defines cyberbullying as “being crule to others by sending or posting harmful material or engaging in other forms of social aggression using the Internet or other digital technologies”. This article discusses the eight forms of cyberbullying; flaming, harassment, denigration, impersonation, outing, trickery, exclusion, exclusion, and cyberstalking. The other half of this article discussed the issue of sexting, and its relation to cyberbullying. Sexting is sending or forwarding nude, sexually suggestive, or explicit pictures on a cell phone or through the internet (Siegle, 2010). An 18-year-old girl committed suicide after her ex-boyfriend shared a digital nude photo of her with their entire school. The girl reported the incident to the authorities and tried to stop it's distribution, but it was too late for her.

I thought that the author of this article did a fantastic job at explaining what exactly cyberbullying is, and all of the different forms of it. It also allows for a clear understanding of all of the different forms of cyberbullying, and who is involved. The article had clear details and statistics about who was participating in cyberbullying, and who where victims of it. I found it extremely interesting that the students with mild disabilities are more likely to be viewed as bullies. I feel that this may be due to their self image, feeling that they are lower than everyone else, and trying to make themselves seem more powerful. I enjoyed the fact that there was a case study in this article, which allowed the reader to understand the reality of the effects of cyberbullying.

Stroud, A. (2009). Fight fire with fire. //T.H.E. Journal//, //9//, 29-30 This article explores the story of Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide as a result of being harassed through a MySpace prank. She took her own life in 2006 after multiple painful internet pranks. Following her death, a trial of the adult who participated in her harassment went public, along with the new idea of “cyberbullying”. Her story got the media’s attention, and many precautions were taken by schools to prevent such an incident from according again. The schools began technology based security solutions to prevent online harassers. They supplied a website and phone line for anonymous reporting, as well as tracing technologies. At Batavia Public Schools, parents and students can click a link on the district’s website to report anonymously about cyberbullying incidents. There is also a new software called StudentWatch that tracks and submitted students’ internet activity. At a school in Southern California, Total Traffic Control software is used to monitor the students, and unjust behavior is penalized immediately. These technological abilities allows modern technology to help fight the bullying associated with the same new technology. Schools are taking more and more precautions to prevent desperate actions like the ones taken by Megan Meier.

I agree with Stroud in that modern technology can indeed help to fight against and prevent inappropriate online behavior such as cyberbulling. However, today’s children are very smart, and can find ways around almost any technological wall put up in front of them. I feel that these students need to be taught to understand the results of their actions, and to realize a few words in an instant message can be as or even more harmful than a punch in the face. Students need guidance and interventions to teach them right from wrong, and make them think twice about taking part in these harmful actions.

Thomas, S. (2006). The phenomenon of cyberbullying. //Issues in Mental Health Nursing//, //27//(10) This editorial begins by giving situations of cyberbullying such as a young girl receiving intimidating e-mails at her middle school, and a nine year old receiving an instant message on her home computer reading; “I’m coming to kill you”. The author explains that these two situations are examples of cyberbullyinmg, which is a “new” phenomenon based on the new technology that students can get their hands on. The author explains that the most fascinating part of cyberbyllying is that the victim has no way of identifying the bully. This is the aspect of cyberbullying that remains the hardest to handle, and can lead to anxiety, stress, depression, lowered self-esteem, and even school phobia. The author introduces the book __Odd Girl Out__ by Rachel Simmons. This book explores the aggression of girls associated with online rumors and social rejection. The author explains that “cyberbullying has an abundant potential for creating significant emotional distress. No longer confined face-to-face interactions at school, the torment by a cyberbully can continue into evening hours and weekends (Thomas, 2010).” This article also introduces a research study in 2004 of fourth to eight grade students. It found that almost 60% had received a hurtful message in some online form. In 2005 a study of sixth to eight graders discovered that for 20% of the students, incidents related to cyberbullying had occurred at least ones in the past two months.

I feel that this editorial is somewhat informative, but due to its creation in 2006, the data is not as relevant to the current form of cyberbullying. For example, we now have many more social networking websites, forms of instant messaging, Formspring websites, and text messaging is much more prevalent now than it was in 2006. However, I do feel that this article is useful and does put some perspective to the issue of cyberbullying. The statistics given from the two reports have now almost doubled if you look at a current report. This reveals the obvious problem of cyberbullying, and the dangerous impacts it has on a young and fragile adolescent mind and ego.

Schwartz, JS. (2010, October 2). Bullying, suicide, punishment. //New York Times//, p. 17. This newspaper analysis explores the story of Tyler Clementi, a 18-year-old violinist that was in his freshman year at Rutgers University. Tyler’s roommate and another student from Rutgers came in contact with a Webcam video of Clementi’s intimate encounter with another man. After the video was streamed onto the Internet, Clementi committed suicide by jumping off of the George Washington Bridge. This case received a lot of media attention, and the passionate anger was obvious due to Clemanti’s sexual orientation. These two men were tried for ten years in prison, but many people argued that they should be called for manslaughter. This article goes on to ask the question “What should the punishment be for acts like cyberbullying and online humiliation?” On one side, people want to do anything they can to prevent cyberbullying using tracking and online resources. On the other side, people argue the right to privacy. Cyberbullying and sexual orientation are said to be a deadly blend by the author of this article. In the few previous weeks to which this article was written, several students have committed suicide due to situations in which they were cyberbullied because of their sexual orientation. In a survey of over 5,000 college students, faculty and staff members who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender found that nearly one in four reported harassment either online or in person (Shwartz, 2010). This article allows Professor Blumefeld, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at Iowa State University, to explain that “students who are cyberbullied have an increased risk for depression, PTSD and even suicidal attempts”. This article ends by analyzing the laws currently concerned with online bullying, and how it not always middle and high school students. A debate is made to have the punishment match the action, pointing out that a death due to cyberbullying should be punished with jail time similar to that of manslaughter.

I found this article very fascinating and well written. It opens one’s eyes to realize that cyberbullying is not just something that middle and high school students are participating in. College students and even adults are falling victim to cyberbullying. This article is somewhat related to another aspect of our groups’ research on bullying, sexual orientation and bullying. Cyberbullying is not just made up words and threats, but it is also exploiting people’s personal pictures and videos. For a person of homosexual orientation, this could be extremely harmful, and can lead to suicide. I enjoyed the argument this article made about the issue of privacy, and how prevention methods of cyberbullying need to take that into consideration.

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