Cyber Bullying Essay

The "typical bully" has been seen as the big tall boy picking on the tiny skinny one, but with time passing by, technology advancing and popularity of social networking raising this image of the "typical bully" has changed. Nowadays, anyone can become a bully from a young elementary child to a parent. Bullying occurs around the world in different ways. But, there is one way of bullying that is in need of more attention and that is cyber bullying. Although there isn't any physical contact in cyber bullying there is still someone involved with feelings, feelings that can be hurt and lead to depression and suicide. It is an action that can easily be done through social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, and other electronic forms. But those that decide to become a cyber bully need to accept the consequences and see that one sentence, even one word can change the other person's life.

A bully becomes a bully when they use their strengths or are influenced to just become superior to someone. They fall into the trap of becoming the popular one or simply just making everyone around them laugh. But now with cyber bullying, there is no actual contact, no actual fight or physical encounter between the people involved, it is simply an individual or group using information through electronic forms to harm the other person. They are publicly humiliating the victim with ease, and they continue to do so because it is easy and they receive the attention for it. As discussed in an interview between Elizabeth Blair and C. J. Pascoe on National Public Radio, public humiliation has been changed by new media, allowing a larger group to become the audience of this bullying. There have been many cases where people have decided to take their lives in response to cyber bullying. But yet the consequences vary from one state to another, not all states have some law against cyber bullying and it is something that has increased throughout the past couple of years.

Cyber bullying has become even more of an issue, now that is has become so easy for one to just go into someone's life and pick on them for anything. Society has become obsessed with sharing everything about one's self that it has helped bullying rise. It has become so easy because anything one post can be seen by everyone and it just takes one person to turn the meaning of one post into something that can change their life. Those that have taken part in cyber bullying share that, "they generally didn't realize the harm that would come from them posting certain information online" (Patchin). But then one comes to ask what is the motivation for these bullies to do what they do, because they should realize what they are doing. The thing is that these cyber bullies have this mindset that what they are doing is just funny, and what they are doing isn't really a big deal. It is a big deal, what they don't realize is how their words can be understood by the other person. A simple joke can be taken as one of the worst things. When one is confronting another face to face they are able to see how the other person reacts and see any hand gestures or facial expressions and are put in the spot of what their reaction will be. Once it is online, they have "that shield of privacy" one doesn't know how the other person is reacting and they don't know when it is the right time to stop. A simple comment can be said with no intent on hurting the other person but that is what can end up happening, the person can be really hurt but the one who wrote the comment won't have any idea because it is online. It is an attack on another person, and it can end up having the effect