Cyberbullying uses online tools to harass victims, often involving embarrassing pictures or gossip. It is most commonly associated with teenagers, but can also involve adults. Victims should report the activity and schools and organizations are developing ways to prevent it.
Cyberbullying is a means of harassment that makes use of online tools to achieve the purpose. The cyberbully may post embarrassing pictures, information, or gossip about another individual on various social networking sites, as well as email, instant messaging, and message boards or forums. As with any type of bullying, the activity is intended to undermine the victim’s trust and create distress for reasons that are usually not apparent to anyone but the bully.
For the most part, cyberbullying is defined as involving a teenager or a teenager as a victim. The bully is most commonly an equal to the victim, although there are cases where the instigator of the bullying is someone more senior. When the activity involves adults as both a victim and a bully, the behavior is more commonly referred to as cyber stalking or cyber harassment.
The exact approach to cyberbullying will vary. In some cases, the bully will send a series of threatening messages to the victim via email or using an instant messaging application. Other times, the bully will join chat rooms that the victim uses regularly and post negative comments about the victim or directly engage the victim with name calling or other derisive verbiage. The bully may use a social networking site to post embarrassing photos of the victim, often retouching them to make them more embarrassing. On message boards and other similar places, the bully may spread rumors about the victim’s ethics or morals in an attempt to damage the individual’s reputation.
The widespread nature of online bullying activity has led many schools, parents, and some legal organizations to develop easy ways for victims to report cyberbullying. Once reported, the appropriate officials can take action to stop an individual from cyberbullying, often through the use of legal means. School cyberbullying activity can lead to the bully being expelled or disciplined in some other way.
As more young people use the internet to socialize, the incidence of cyberbullying is likely to continue. Developing new software and security measures against cyberbullying can help reduce the activity to some extent. Schools and other youth-related organizations have also developed guidelines for the use of computers in schools and libraries, making it easier to stop cyberbullying when it’s detected. In any case, the victim of cyber bullying should always report the activity so that corrective measures can be implemented.
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