Behind The Scenes Of A Cyber Bully

Link to us: http://snipr.com/u587e

A common denotion amongst most of us, and victims alike are that cyber-bullies are mean, disrespectful, atrocious people. Little do we know that behind the scenes is a whole different story. Studies have been conducted to research the causes that turn these people into 'bullies'.

Cyber-bullying is similar to the traditional ways of bullying, where the 'bigger kids' push the 'smaller kids' off swings and slides in a park, or the high school bully who would taunt others and pick on people smaller than him or her. The underlying cause is pretty much similar. The reason for people to act in a manner that is purposely to cause hurt or anger towards another is the same, whether it is reality or virtually.

Unfortunately, although a playground is limited to a set number of people (or 'viewers'), the internet however, is not. The internet is an inter-connected network which branches out to millions and millions of users, causing victims of cyber-bullying to be exposed to worldwide shame and critisism.

A reasearch was conducted in May 2007, by the Pew Internet & American Life Project to determine the cause of these bullies, due to the fact that statistics showed that one-third of the US teenage internet users were targets of cyber-bullying.
(information taken from http://snipr.com/u57ms)

According to the research, the problem still lies in the infany period. Growing kids look to older people to be taken as a role model. Through this, kids from problematic families, where thier mother and father are constantly arguing or they go through child abuse, will tend to become more agressive in nature and; as their 'role models' did, they too will disrespect other people unnecessarily. In a way, they were taught such ways by thier parents, as the parents did not set good examples to follow. Cyber-bullies usually consist of people who are facing serious issues due to thier childhood, or they were not brought up properly, in a proper enviroment. They are deprived of love and affection and this causes them to bury that need for it completely, and they tend to take out that frustration building in them on other kids around them, as they think it makes them feel better about themselves. They are usually the kids that need that hug or that token of kindness to make them realize that there is another way of attitude.

On another note, due to the fact that the internet poses to be a 'private' enviroment and makes people believe that they are anonymos, this encourages people to act more agressively and they tend to do things they would not try in real life. Thus, the advancement of online communication becomes a stimulant for those to act as they wish and do or say things (online) as they want too. This becomes a problem as those who are potential bullies tend to submit to their need to bully another.

The rise of cyberbullying - tech - 19 July 2007 - New Scientist: "'It's school-yard bullying taken to the next level,' says Justin Patchin, a criminologist at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire."


Scientist: "It would be bad enough to be cyber bullied by one kid and nobody else knew about it, but a video seen by hundreds or thousands of your peers could be devastating," says Robin Kowalski, a phychologist at Clemson University in South Carolina and co-author of the book Cyber Bullying: Bullying in the digital age, which will be published in October."
(the book was published in October 2007)