Michelle Chiodi
Shampa
UN 2001
November 15, 2010
Cyber Bullying: A New Breed of Bullies?
“Lisa is ugly, everyone hates her,” “Johnny has no friends, what a loser,” “Look at Natalie’s outfit, what was she thinking?” Sound familiar? They do to the many students who are bullied. About a decade ago bullying was one of the largest forms of violence in our country. These days however, those insults might be considered “old school.” It seems that in the digital boom of the 21st century everything is making a transition from the real, tangible world to a virtual world. Bullying is not excluded from this. With the transition to a digital social network comes a new mentality for users, one where they may feel as if there are no consequences for their actions. This report will show that the digital media has created a new breed of bully and help the reader understand what is being done and what still needs to be done to combat the threat of cyber bullying.
Before the technology boom of the mid 21st century most bullying took place on school grounds. In 2003 it was found that bullying was the most common type of violence in the US with 15%-30% of students being victims or bullies (Canter). On the National Association of School Psychologists website it states that, “A [2003] report from the American Medical Association on a study of over 15,000 6th-10th graders estimates that approximately 3.7 million youths engage in, and more than 3.2 million are victims of, moderate or serious bullying each year (Canter).” Often the victims are insecure, passive, won’t retaliate, and are physically weaker than the aggressor (Canter). While these characteristics are not exclusive to traditional bullies, the bullies of today go far beyond traditional bullies.
Tradition school yard bullying is often described as systematic physical or verbal persecution. It has been found that bullying in schools is less likely when more teachers or supervisor are present. Unlike today, there was no standout in gender which was more likely to be bullied before the technology boom, girls were bullied about equally as much as boys (Kusel). These facts serve as good standards to compare the bullying of the cyber age to.
With the addition of digital media the realm of bullying goes far beyond physical and verbal harassment. Visual harassment such as posting defamatory, embarrassing videos or photo shopped pictures is becoming increasingly common. Unlike spoken words, text exchanged in a virtual world does not disappear. Once something is created in the internet, it is there to stay. Not only has the venue for bullies greatly increased but the demographic of the bullies and victims has changed. Unlike traditional bullying, it has been found that females are more likely to be bullied and to bully in cyberspace (Li). This means that the content of the threats or violence with be different than previous.
In the recent years the venue for bullies has expanded from school and the playground to the web. Technology has created various new forms of bullying which creates more danger for more people. Bullies are turning to e-mail, instant messaging, Web sites, voting booths, and chat rooms to harass their victims (Beale). For victims this makes escaping the tormenting increasingly difficult because technology and social networking is an integral part of teenage life. Unlike school yard bullying, cyber bullying can be conducted through various types of media which presents a new set of concerns for the (Li). Young victims are being exposed to media far too grotesque for their age (Li). Nowadays victims are sometimes plagued with pornographic images or provocative photos of themselves, real or fake, seen by many. These are things that were not even possible in the age of traditional bullying and are undoubtedly far more embarrassing.
Since bullies now have a greater means to bully, the occurrence of bullying has increased greatly since the age of school yard bullying. A study conducted among middle school students showed that 25 percent of females and 11 percent of males reported being cyber bullied at least once in the preceding two months (Beale). This adds to be 36 percent of the population studied that is reporting being bullied. When compared to the previous study mentioned that found at most 30% of students reporting to be bullied or bullies it can be see that the new estimate far higher. This new figure only report those who have been bullied while the old data reported bullies and those bullied. The 36% of those bullied today translate into a far higher estimate when those who are bullies are added in. Because of this it is apparent that cyber bullying is more widespread than traditional bullying and is a cause in the creation of a new, harsher bully.
Beale and Hall’s Cyberbullying: What School Administrators (and Parents) Can Do says, “According to the results of the first national survey on school bullying, 74 percent of eight- to eleven-year-old students reported that bullying and teasing occurred at their schools (Beale).” This survey was conducted at a time before cyber bullying was prevalent, before Myspace and Facebook were even created. Thinking about this fact is daunting. If the digital boom has increased the prevalence of bullying then it is safe to assume that students seeing bullying and teasing at school is nearing 100 percent.
New digital media allows the humiliation of bullying to be more widespread. In a school in California students posted scathing rumors and racist comments to the website www.schoolscandals.com (Li). This was so rampant that nearly the entire school of almost 2000 students was affected (School). This is certainly not an isolated case where the bullying reached a large audience. A middle-school boy, Will, from Kansas knows just how tormenting a large audience can be. After he and his girlfriend broke up, the girl created a website to smear Will. She made various threats and vividly described what it would be like if his body were to be ripped apart (Li). Compared to face-to-face bullying the scale that cyber bullying has reached is outrageous. While traditional bullies may have the lunchroom crowd as their audience, cyber bullies have a limitless audience. For this reason cyber bullying is much more severe than traditional bullying.
While the occurrence of bullying has increased with the addition of technology, that is not the only factor leading to a harsher style of bullying. Bullies feel safe when they are attacking on the internet. They feel that they can be anonymous therefore no one will know what they say in a cyber world (Beale). Not only do internet users feel a sense of anonymity but they can also pose as other users. It is so simple for a user to log on as someone else or use a non identifying screen name. Even if the owner of a screen name is identified that user can simply blame someone else for using their screen name (Beale). Because cyber bullies can pose as others and feel anonymous this causes the bully to be more mean-spirited and say things they would never say in the face-to-face world (Beale). Cyber bullies hide behind their screen names with little fear of being caught; this leads to more brazen attacks (Beale). With school yard bullying bullies were deterred by teachers or other supersiors in fear of being caught. Today however the internet does not have those teacher or supervisor figures so bullies feel like they have free rein. On a prevention website stopcyberbullying.org it states that, “Cyberbullying is limited only by the imaginations and bandwidths of kids.” This means that today’s bullies essentially have no limits, no inhibitions, and the power to severely torment their victims.
While the level of fear decreases for the bullies themselves, the level of fear for the victim increases. In the cyber world the attacks are more vicious and the victim could have no idea who the attacker is, leading to great trepidation (Beale). Unlike traditional bullying where a teacher or other student could see an incident, if the victim doesn’t stand up for them self or doesn’t report the aggressor, no one will know it is going on. A student can be cyber bullied while someone is sitting right next to the victim and the bystander can remain completely unaware of what is happening. As Beale and Hall state, “A tormentor can get into a victims’ home, harassing him or her while parents sit comfortable in the next room (Beale).”
In the news recently there have been an increasing number of reports of cyber bullying even some cases where the bullying has been so extreme it leads the victim to suicide. Most recent is the story of Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers freshman who was tormented to an extreme. Tyler was a reserved student who was victimized by his roommate. The roommate video taped an intimate encounter between Tyler and another student and streamed this video to the internet for the whole world to see. Understandably, Tyler was extremely humiliated by this. Just days after the video was posted, Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge to his death (Tyler). This is an extreme and horrifying example of cyber bullying but the reality of the situation is that cyber bullying is becoming more brutal and more widespread. Stories like Tyler’s are becoming all too common and this call into question what measures are being taken to prevent cyber bullying.
Because cyber bullying is so much more widespread and severe than traditional bullying, new preventative measures and punishments are being sought by many. Facebook is one of the most common social networking sites in use today. Many teens use this site and of course, this presents the threat of cyber bullying. Facebook takes this issue seriously. There is a section in their help center that addresses cyber bullying and provides tips to prevent it and ways to respond to and report it (Safety). Many good tips are given for safe use of Facebook which includes using privacy settings to restrict viewers, accepting friend requests only from people you know, blocking abusive users, and reporting abusive users (Safety). It is policies and preventative measures like these that can make users safer.
However, a problem lies in the fact that these measures may not be sought out by the users who need them, they might not know they exist. To find these tips, users must first realize that they need to search in the Help Center. Once in the Help Center it is not obvious where to go from there since there are many different links to choose from. The process to get to the information about teens and cyber bullying can be confusing and requires the user to click many different links before finally arriving at the desired information. Some users may get fed up with this and abort their search before they find any useful information. If Facebook truly is committed to making their site free from cyber bullying they need to make preventative information more accessible and make it know that the information exists.
The way Facebook handles reports may be disappointing to the victim as well. It is safe to guess that the victim would want the abuser to be removed from the site so they can’t bully them or anyone else again. If the victim reports the bully Facebook administrators will look at the report and determine what to do. In all cases the reported content is removed but in some the bully is actually banned from the site. Sadly, there seems to be very few cases where the abuse is deemed bad enough to warrant the bully actually being banned from the site (Safety). For Facebook to be seen as a site that is committed to stopping cyber bullying, they need to be harsher with their response to reports. Facebook should give the reported user one warning after an initial report and then if abusive behavior continues, the user should be banned. This would show that Facebook is taking a strong stance against cyber bullies and wants to protect its users.
Facebook is surely not the only site taking preventative measures. Many schools and other websites are taking measures to prevent and prosecute offences. Schools are developing policies for how to deal with reports of cyber bullies and trying to be more proactive in the prevention. It can be seen on the social safety.org website that many states are passing legislation to protect students from cyber bullying. The bills that these states are passing require local school districts within the state to add cyber bullying policies to their acceptable use document (Laws). Most of the legislation documented on this site was enacted in 2006 or 2007 and only applies to incidents occurring on campus. More recently, however, a standard has been set for which to apply to off campus issues (Trager).
While schools are developing cyber bullying prevention and punishment policies they still face a Catch-22 in dealing with cyber bullying. On one hand students First Amendment rights are in question of being violated but on the other hand, schools can be held liable for not intervening in cases of cyber bullying, even those occurring off campus (Trager). Because of this tricky situation, schools are beginning to apply what is known as the Tinker Standard to cyber bullying. As Trager states in his article New Tricks for Old Dogs: The Tinker Standard Applied to Cyber-Bullying, the Tinker Standard states that students have a right, “to be free from a substantial disruption” and when this right is violated, schools can intervene in the situation (Trager). By applying the Tinker Standard, schools can punish cyber bullies if it is found that the act, whether performed on or off campus, created significant disruption in school. This standard protects the schools from being accused of violating students First Amendment rights and allows schools to punish incidents that occurred off campus (Trager).
While it is a step in the right direction that schools are creating cyber bullying policies, something more appealing to students needs to be done. School’s cyber bullying policies are stated in their acceptable use statements which are likely not read by students and if they are read are probably soon disregarded. For this reason more site like athinline.org need to be created and prometed. This site is dedicated to teens and challenges them to draw the line between digital use and digital abuse (A Thin Line). Because teens have such a large presence online fighting cyber bullying online makes sense. This website provides interactive activities, quizzes, and videos. A Thin Line has even partnered with MTV to offer incentives to users like a trip to the 2011 Video Music Awards and has stars from MTV show appear in videos aiming to prevent and educate students on cyber bullying (A Thin Line). More of this is needed. We are living a digital revolution so teens are going to be more eager to log onto a site that is interactive as opposed to read about cyber bullying from their school.
By examining the techniques and occurrence of cyber bullying, traditional bullying begins to look almost innocent. New media provides a much larger scale for which cyber bullies can torment and harass. There are so many more ways to bully now than there ever have been. Bullies use email, social networking sites, broadcasting sites, and instant messaging to intimidate on a whole new level. Because digital media is now being used, the audience for bullying is limitless; the internet is a vast resource. The level of secrecy that comes with the internet allows bullies to be more brazen and less fearful of being caught. At the same time this creates a greater fear for victims because they may feel isolated because they do not know the identity of the bully and may feel hopeless in any punishment being given.
Works Cited
A Thin Line. athinline.org. 7 October 2009. Web. 14 November 2010.
Beale, Andrew V., and Kimberly R. Hall. “Cyberbullying: What School Administrators (and Parents) Can Do.” Wilson Web. Web. 3 November 2010.
Canter, Andrea and Andrea Cohn. Bullying: Facts for Schools and Parents. National Association of School Psychologists, 7 October 2003. 3 November 2010.
Kusel, Sara J., David G. Perry , and Louise C. Perry. “Victims of Peer Aggression.” Wilson Web. Web. 3 November 2010.
Laws Against Cyberbullying. Socialsafety.org, 2008. Web. 14 November 2010.
Li, Qing. “New bottle but old wine: A research of cyberbullying in schools.” Academic OneFile. Web. 3 November 2010.
Safety for Teens. Facebook, 2010. Web. 4 November 2010.
School Profile 2010-2011. Calabasas High School, 2010. Web 4 November 2010.
Trager, Guffy B. “New Tricks for Old Dogs: The Tinker Standard Applied to Cyber-Bullying.” Wilson Web. Web. 14 November 2010.
“Tyler Clementi.” New York Times. New York Times, 1 October 2010. Web. 3 November 2010.
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