Pervasion Of Bullying Through Digital Medium

Jamey Rodemeyer and Megan Meier Cases

Discuss about the Pervasion of Bullying through Digital Medium.

Jamey Rodemeyer was a 14-year-old boy from New York who was taunted for being gay. He was teased for being different than the other boys. He was victimized and aggressively treated online (Boyd, and Marwick, 2011). He was taunted from many of his peers.  He decided to end his life after he felt that no one listened to his pleas. Jamey was different he repeatedly reaches out and seek help. This is not the case at all times. Teenagers start to define themselves based on their peer approval and assume they have the tools to control the situation. They do not seek the help of the adults esp. the parents. The teenagers start to feel that they are powerless in these kind of situation and try to handle the issues by themselves (Hinduja and Patchin, 2010.). In these cases, they do not make the right choices.

Megan Meier was 13 years old when she decided to take her own life by hanging herself in the bedroom closet. Megan was suffering from attention deficit disorder and depression with regards to her weight. She befriended a person called Josh Evans in an online portal (Maag, 2007). After a few weeks Josh started to become cruel towards Megan. He started saying the world would be a better place without you. Other students also posted disturbing messages to Megan. She decided to take her life in October 2006 before her 14^th Birthday. These cases are not isolated incidents. Not all bullying victims choose to end their life. But they have the emotional marks of being abused throughout their life (Beran, and Li,  2008.). These cases of Jamey and Megan are symbolization of the larger issues.  The roots of the bullying represent the larger factions of the society.

Many teenagers are victimized for being different from their peer groups. According to the statistical figures and data documentation 25% of the teenager report that they have experienced some form of bullying in their digital tools such as phone or the internet. 52% of the young people state that they have been the victim of bullying online. 11% of the adolescent teens report that they have embarrassing or damaging pictures of themselves online. These pictures are mostly taken without the consent or the knowledge of the party. Many of these victims still do not speak about their issues. This leads to the daunting task of identifying the impact these bullies cause on the victims to prevent any unwarranted actions. The reasons for the young people to consider ending their life is a really sad situation. They need to have a better handle over the situation They feel powerless and assume that they have no control over their life. In this case there should be laws protecting the victims and preventing the bullies from victimizing.

Cyberbullying and Technology

In the current times the people are using internet more than ever. There has been an ubiquitous use of technology in the recent times. The people like having constant access and mediums to voice their opinion. The internet is not a simple or a convenient way to have fun. It has become a large part of the social life. The email and the chatting with friends are a common phenomenal. To address the issues of cyber bullying the issue of bullying need to be addressed.

Bullying has always existed in the schools and colleges. It has been a critical issue for the schools and colleges over decades. The bully’s use violent behavior that is physically abusive or taunt the victims with words (Campbell, 2005). The so called reasons for the bully is to gain peer approval. They consider themselves superior by being a bully to others. By demonizing and teasing another person they start to form bonds with the members of their own group. This form of teasing allows the bully to gain friendships. This is the main reason for the bullies to taunt their victims over the period. The advent of the social mediums and internet has led to easier documentation of bullying (Gradinger, Strohmeier, and Spiel, 2009). In the past times there were no real evidence to state that a person was being victimized. When the victims comment to the adults they often consider it a small issue or a non-issue. Some of the parents assume that this would lead to the kids being strengthened as stronger adults. More often than not the adults tend to dismiss a conflict that hurts the sentiments of the teenagers (Willard, 2006). The drama has been considered as a frivolous. The instigators think that this act of bullying is harmless fun but they have dire consequences. Intervention for teenagers should be directed towards making them empowered. From analysis of many news stories and cases from across the world it is can be seen that cyber bullying has emerged as a major problem. The issue with cyber bullying is that it is discarded as a teenager’s melodrama. It was considered as a drama that encompasses the issues of minor teenager’s problem, makeup, gossip and breakups (Garaigordobil, and Martínez-Valderrey, 2015). This bullying is considered to be nothing but a drama of the teenager. It is dismissed by the adults. Rather it is a protective mechanism for the adults or the law to deal with this issues. They discard the hurt sentiments of the teenagers and this leads them to feel powerlessness.

Legislation and Government’s Role

This issue of bullying has increased manifold owing to the development of technology. It is now easier to harass someone over the Internet. This has grown in the case of cyber bullying. There is a lot of mind games that is involved in bullying. It makes the other person feel like a pariah. These verbal assaults and posting of negative issues also causes the same harm as school yard bullying. The people from many portals use their voice to tease a person. These bullying cases are sadly not limited towards the younger population. The adults are also experiencing these forms of derogatory comments. They are made to address these comments and the people form judgements. The advent of social media has caused the people to voice their opinions and at the same time use these opinions to create division in the society.

The legislation and the laws should protect the people from being victimized. There should be some mandates by the government to ensure that the people are protected from these vicious attacks. There should be stronger laws and stringent actions that should be taken by the government in these cases. The government should provide the tools for the teenagers to protect themselves. The government can develop more hotlines or online mediums to report the attacks anonymously. They should protect the victims in the society. These teenagers are actually victims to the larger issues that is pervading the society. The only way to address bullying is by protecting the victims by stringent laws and educating the younger generation to empower themselves. They should be encouraged to voice against the bullies and they should be protected. To achieve this paradigm, the teachers, parents, student councilors and the government should develop integrated efforts to empower and educate the young population from being victimized.

Cyberbullying is a complicated issue. The adults esp. the caregivers and the parents need to educate themselves with the recent developments in technology (Kowalski et al., 2012). They need to find ways to address these issues. They should work with the children and talk to them to explain the ways in which they can protect themselves from being victimized. The adults need to understand the issues of cyberbullying and the law needs to catch up with the issues of bullying.

Words have a physical and emotional impact. Bullying causes deep emotional disturbances for the people (Bazelon, 2013.). The goal of the parents and the law should be directed towards intervention at the moment of the children being victimized. The focus should be directed towards the teenager’s cultural frame and empathy. The interventions should be a practice followed by the teachers and the law to develop confidence in the teenagers. They should not consider themselves to the oppressed or the oppressor. They should rather focus on the expanding their horizons and developing confidence. To conclude, cyberbullying is an issue that needs to be addressed and all the members of the society should work towards to helping one another. The rising technology also has given rise to its own set of challenges. They should be addressed tactfully. This should be addressed to create a safer environment for all people.

Reference: 

Bazelon, E., 2013. Defining bullying down. New York Times, 12.

Belsey, B., 2005. Cyberbullying: An emerging threat to the “always on” generation. Recuperado el, 5.

Beran, T. and Li, Q., 2008. The relationship between cyberbullying and school bullying. The Journal of Student Wellbeing, 1(2), pp.16-33.

Boyd, D. and Marwick, A., 2011. Bullying as true drama. The New York Times, 22.

Campbell, M.A., 2005. Cyber Bullying: An Old Problem in a New Guise?.Australian journal of Guidance and Counselling, 15(01), pp.68-76.

Garaigordobil, M. and Martínez-Valderrey, V., 2015. Effects of Cyberprogram 2.0 on” face-to-face” bullying, cyberbullying, and empathy. Psicothema,27(1), pp.45-51.

Gradinger, P., Strohmeier, D. and Spiel, C., 2009. Traditional bullying and cyberbullying: Identification of risk groups for adjustment problems. Zeitschrift für Psychologie/Journal of Psychology, 217(4), pp.205-213.

Hinduja, S. and Patchin, J.W., 2010. Bullying, cyberbullying, and suicide.Archives of suicide research, 14(3), pp.206-221.

Kowalski, R.M., Limber, S.P., Limber, S. and Agatston, P.W., 2012.Cyberbullying: Bullying in the digital age. John Wiley & Sons.

Maag, C., 2007. When the bullies turned faceless. The New York Times, 16.

Slonje, R. and Smith, P.K., 2008. Cyberbullying: Another main type of bullying?. Scandinavian journal of psychology, 49(2), pp.147-154.

Willard, N., 2006. Cyberbullying and cyberthreats. Eugene, OR: Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use.