Hello! Please read my research project/essay on cyber bullying. Professor requires a peer review of the essay. Thanks!!!
What Is Bullying?
A bully is considered someone who continuously mistreats another person who is considered weaker with the intent to harm or humiliate them. Bullying has been used as a tool to prove superiority and obtain high rank over everyone else (Wolke, par. 3). Through the years bullying has been looked upon as just a part of growing up or considered a rite of passage and many times it is seen as harmless or sometimes even playful behavior. Unfortunately, bullying can, and has had an extremely negative affect on adolescents leading to how they eventually function as adults. Despite the recent media attention and increased school involvement, currently 33 percent of children experience bullying in their lives (Wolke, par. 2). Bullying continues to remain a prevalent issue among todays adolescents. Bullying does not always involve a physical altercation, which increases the difficulty to detect and becomes an issue in itself. The extent of consequences bullying has on adolescents is also not generally understood. Bullying is the most complex form of abuse among adolescents that can transpire in four different forms, involves four different roles, and negatively impacts all participants directly or indirectly involved.
There are four types of bullying and are based on how the victim is being victimized. They are physical, verbal, social, and cyberbullying. The first category, physical bullying, is the most noticeable. Physical bullying involves causing bodily harm to the other person, stealing personal belongings, and vandalizing personal belongings (Shetgiri, par. 3). When a child comes home with bruises and missing or damaged belongings, it can be straightforward that the child is being physically bullied. An appalling example of physical bullying occurred in September of 2019 when a thirteen-year-old boy, who had been a victim to bullying numerous times previously, in Moreno Valley, CA was physically assaulted by two other students. The attack caused the victim to be hospitalized with a critical injury that ended in their death (Bellware). This type of physical bullying is extremely dangerous and can potentially threaten other of adolescents who fall victim to bullies.
Verbal bullying utilizes words to assault an individual. Repeated occurrences of ridiculing, mocking, name calling and prompting fear through threats are instances of verbal bullying (Shetgiri, par.3). Verbal bullying, much the same as physical bullying, is an exceptionally outright style of mistreatment that can be distinguished effectively by grown-ups. Verbal abuse can be a formidable type of bullying and as stated by keepyourchildsafe.org, "child abuse is ultimately about messages. Its harm is delivered primarily through the negative ideas a child learns to identify themselves with," (par. 3). Consistent insults can shape the manner in which the victim feels about themselves and thus hurt the victim emotionally. Through verbal bullying the victims are embarrassed and humiliated to be made to look weaker and submissive compared to the bully ("What is Verbal Bullying and How to Handle Verbal Bullies," par. 2). The objective of the bully is to enhance how the victim is significantly less.
Social bullying involves harming friendships and reputations to hurt the person in question. Social bullying includes giving the silent treatment, barring the individual from their social gathering, gossiping about the person in question, poking destructive fun at the person in question, and making the friendship with the individual contingent (Deverich, par. 4). This kind of bullying is more recognizable among young ladies than young men and relies upon the power of having "cliques" to hoist the status of these bullies. Social animosity is concealed in plain sight by hurting, "others through purposeful manipulation and damaging their peer relationship," in a way that the bully camouflages as fun loving behavior (Deverich, par. 4). The reason for existing is to cause the circumstance to appear as light as could be expected, as though the goal isn't to really harm the individual when in all actuality it is. This sort of execution can make it hard for a grown-up to separate the circumstance from energetic chat to hurtful bullying. Teenagers want to feel like they have a place they belong and fear feeling alone. Social bullying is ground-breaking in light of the fact that the victim would prefer to have companions and bear the abuse than be all alone and secluded (Deverich, standard. 8). That dread makes kids drive themselves to suffer mistreatment from their peers for friendship. Bullies gain proficiency with these manipulative strategies most usually at home through observing relatives gossiping, giving the cold shoulder, or making others "earn" their love (Deverich, par. 9). At home these adolsecents are discovering that vindictive social hostility is the best approach to deal with any animosity they may feel against another peer.
The fourth type of bullying is cyberbullying and it is the hardest type of bullying to distinguish and act against in light of the fact that it happens through electronic gadgets and devices. A third of teenagers who utilize social media experience cyberbullying on the web (Lenhart). A vast majority of adolescents utilize social media to communicate constantly with the world. Unfortunately, this makes them particularly defenseless against online bullies. Cyberbullying includes sharing private discussions or photographs of the victim without their consent, gossiping about the victim online, and sending threatening messages (Lenhart). The web gives these bullies a feeling of concealment and produces an easy strategy for bullies to assault their victims. Cyberbullying can be exceptionally shrewd on the grounds that it reaches an individual anyplace, and it spreads to peers fairly effectively and rapidly through online media (Shetgiri, par. 5). Social media interfaces a huge amount of individuals from around the globe on the web and makes a stage for individuals to impart content to everyone surprisingly fast. Consequently, a bully has simple and speedy admittance to their victims online at some random time and it permits the harasser to strengthen their assault by showing their embarrassment of the victim to the world. Cyberbullying is difficult to distinguish on the grounds that it is not totally direct and on display. This mistreatment or abuse is covered up in the adolescent's cell phone, tablet, laptop, or PC.
There are two of the most recognized rolls played in a bullying situation, the bully and the victim. The other two roles, bully-victim and bystanders, are only occasionally recognized by the way they add to a situation. It is significant for adults to have the knowledge to distinguish these various types of participants and comprehend why an adolescent takes on every roll with the goal that they can make an exceptional and successful approach for every adolescent while tending to an occurrence of bullying. By understanding the attributes of each kind of participant, guardians and parents can start seeing the signs at home in their own adolescents. Guardians and parents would then be able to put forth an attempt to converse with their adolescent and change their perspective to keep them from focusing on different individuals, targeting, assuming control over, holding onto the torment is silence, or accidentally reassuring a bully by not confronting the person in question.
Bullies are the children who act as the aggressors and attack other vulnerable children. Children can begin bullying as early as preschool age when they have an inadequate understanding of how to interact with other children in a proper manner ("Bully", par. 2). As time passes by and an adolescent successfully acts out against other adolescents consistently, the seriousness of their activities rises. What can start as ridiculing and pushing at age four can prompt a teenager that mistreats another teenager with extraordinary dangers, threatening terrorizing attacks, and an actual physical attack that could bring about misfortune for the individual in question. Then again, what can start as a four-year-old disregarding a friend, he or she is mad at can elevate to a high schooler that goes to making gossipy rumors, destroying reputations, and sharing private discussions to hurt a peer. Bullies only care about how they're seen by their peers. These adolescents need to guarantee a high social status by asserting their dominance over everybody around them (Wolke, par. 4). Bullies decide to demonstrate their dominance by embarrassing a more vulnerable individual before a crowd of people, be it a gathering of onlookers or a gathering of peers. Bullies are not really powerless themselves. In the article, "Long-term effects of bullying," Wolke describes bullies to, "...have been found to be strong, highly popular and to have good social and emotional standing," (par. 3). Bullies are supported by their friends and are regularly successful. These adolescents utilize bullying to keep up their high position in the social ladder.
Bully-victims are another type of bully. These bullies are adolescents who are perpetually tortured themselves and choose to mistreat other more vulnerable peers. Victims of bullying can become aggressors in two ways. These adolescents can either decide to promptly manage their outrage from being tormented towards other more shy targets or gradually form into a bully over time (Shetgiri, par. 9). Adolescents who are victimized can go to harming others as an approach to restore control and force that was forced away from them by their bullies. Individuals of bullying will likely going about as bullies themselves since they acquired in it from their aggressors. These adolescents discover that through acts of mistreatment and abuse of power against others that are weaker, they can ascend the social ladder, be acknowledged by their peers around them, and get anything they desire. Only one out of every other victim will turn into a bully. Bully-victims most commonly come from familial backgrounds that demonstrate frequent aggression or lack of parental structure and affection (Shetgiri, par. 9). On the off chance that an adolescent notices aggression at home and encounters it at school from individual peers, at that point that adolescent will accept that this is the way the world should work. The adolescent will discover that scares and assaults are the best way to achieve what is needed throughout everyday life. A nonappearance of parental contribution and closeness influences how an adolescent measures difficulty. At the point when an adolescent has no parental guidance to teach and guide them through difficult moments and to encourage them emotionally it forces the adolescent to struggle and resolve on their own. This can and has led to adolescents making poor decisions.
The following participant in a bullying situation is the unwilling victim. Victims are the adolescents who are exposed to mistreatment by stronger and more dominant adolescents. Survivors of bullying are generally more modest and more vulnerable than their bullies, lack confidence, are effectively influenced emotionally, and are easily intimidated (Shetgiri, par. 10). Adolescents with these attributes are regular focuses for bullies since they are an unchallenging prey. These adolescents are bound to give the best reaction to mishandle and that is the thing that a harasser needs to see. Victims of bullying lack self-confidence which often inhibits their willingness to reach out for help against their bullies (Shetgiri, par. 10). Victims are humiliated of what is occurring and pick not stand up in light of the fact that they accept they will be disgraced by adults also. Adolescents may likewise not stand up in light of the fact that they are apprehensive the bullies will treat them much worse. Having support is the thing that reduces the odds that an adolescent may turn into a casualty to bullying. Victims of bullying generally do not have many, or any, supportive friends to defend them making them easy targets for bullying (Wolke, par. 4). At the point when an adolescent is defenseless against bullying, that adolescent remaining solitary against a bully or a gathering of bullies is not sufficient to stop the mistreatment. Having a gathering of peers or adults to help the adolescent and protect the adolescent is regularly enough to make a bully stop on the grounds that the bully will understand that their activities will not go unpunished.
The fourth participant in bullying is the observer or bystander. The bystanders are the adolescents who watch a bullying situation happen and do not act against it. There are two kinds of bystanders. Bystanders can be "reinforcers" which are children who gather around to watch the bullying incident and children who laugh and motivate the bully (Rivers, pg. 212). These onlookers find the whole circumstance engaging and entertaining. These adolescents are picking their own amusement over the well being of others. Bystanders are also children who see the bullying occurring and choose to walk away rather than helping the victim (Rivers, pg. 212). These adolescents accept that in light of the fact that the bully is not acting against them it has nothing to do with them. These adolescents do not feel any duty to help the person in question.
Bullying does not just damage the person in question, it hurts the aggressors, the bully-victims, and the bystanders as well. Beginning with the bullies, through continuous demonstrations of abusing others, bullies clear a way of wrongdoing through adulthood. Starting with the bullies, through frequent acts of abusing others, bullies pave a path of delinquency through adulthood. Bullies begin to lose their sense of empathy and rationalize their behavior by blaming the victims for their aggression ("Bully", par. 6). Each time an adolescent causes others to endure and simply notices it, that adolescent starts to become acclimate to seeing others endure and gradually begins to lose their feeling of empathy. By accusing the people in question, bullies diminish themselves of the obligation of their activities. With an absence of empathy and without feeling an awareness of certain expectations, the bully starts discovering ease in tormenting more and expanding the gravity of the mistreatment.
An adolescent who effectively bullies others all through their life will accept that abuse is the best approach to excel throughout everyday life. In a world with laws and consequences, these now developed adults can confront trouble. As indicated by Rashmi Shetgiri in her article, "Bullying and Victimization Among Children," she states, "One study found that 60% of boys who bullied in 6th -9th grades had at least one criminal conviction by age 24 and 35; 40% of these boys had three or more convictions by this time," (par. 23). These aults never figured out how to appropriately handle their feelings, handle struggle, or procure things reasonably as adolescents since they generally pulled off abusing their friends. Accordingly, their activities raised and drove them to violating the law, harming others, and harming themselves eventually.
Bullying influences and affects the victim emotionally and physically. Adolescents who are subjected to bullying can develop an internalizing disorder, anxiety, worsening self-esteem, and contemplate suicide (Wolke, par. 6). Regardless of how an adolescent is tormented or bullied the adolescent will be caused to feel less than others. The adolescent is going to overthink each snapshot of their lives and cannot help thinking about why the individual in question was focused on and reprimand themselves for the mistreatment. The adolescent is going to overthink each circumstance later on to abstain from being mistreated once more, creating more ongoing pressure as an adult. On the off chance that the adolescent cannot endure the mistreatment and does not feel like assistance is accessible, the individual may attempt self-destruction or suicide trying to end the torment and suffering. Victims of bullying also have an increased probability of experiencing stress-induced colds, headaches, stomach aches, and sleeping issues (Wolke, par. 6) Continuous bullying makes the victim stressed on all the time. Being in a continuous state of stress starts to negatively affect the adolescents body and debilitate the immune system.
Victims of bullying who become bullies themselves have an increased likelihood of carrying out serious violations, committing crimes and having poor emotional wellness. As per Rashmi Shetgiri, "A study of school-associated homicides in the 1990's found that almost 20% of perpetrators had been bullied and perpetrators of school shootings were more than twice as likely than their victims to have been bullied," (par. 24). Bully-victims lash out on others to recover the power that was detracted from them by bullies. A bully-victim may go to extraordinary measures, similar to a school mass shooting, to deliver their outrage. A victim who becomes an aggressor is more likely than a pure victim to develop anxiety and depression (Wolke, par. 6). He or she is also more likely to commit suicide than a pure victim (Shetgiri, par. 25). Bully victims are bound to be avoided by a strategic distance from by different adolescents and adults, bringing about an expanded sensation of depression and vulnerability.
Bystanders of a bullying situation can likewise encounter harm to their psychological well-being. Adolescents who watch another child being bullied can still experience adverse effects to their psychological functioning even if the witnesses had never experience being bullied themselves (Rivers, pg. 213). Observers to bullying may feel compassionate for the individual in question and sympathize with their pain and humiliation for themselves. Their empathy may lead witnesses to experience conflicting beliefs and behaviors from wanting to react to the situation but failing to do so (Rivers, pg. 213). These adolescents can encounter pressure from debating whether to help the person in question or remain on the sidelines. Adolescents seeing another adolescent being assaulted or bullied may likewise create tension out of dread that they might be deceived by the bully too (Rivers, pg. 213). Those adolescents may fear turning into a victim and might be incredibly wary to evade the bully. Accordingly, these adolescents make a state of constant stress inside themselves.
Bullying should not need to be a piece of growing up and it should not actually be occurring to a third of all adolescents today. Bullying is a form of abuse that has advanced into numerous structures. Having the ability to perceive the diverse way that an adolescent can be victimized is essential so no adolescent is neglected and left to confront their bullies alone. Understanding the impacts that bullying has on every one of the four types of participants' outlines the seriousness of the mistreatment and emphasizes why move ought to be done against bullying. Understand that bullying comes in numerous structures and forms, includes various participants beside the run of the mill bully and victim, and adversely impacts everybody included.