Critical Essay on Anti-Bullying

The introduction of the Internet has changed the way of communication drastically over the years. In the early 20’s, people used to communicate and socialize more often with their peers through face-to-face interactions. However, with the rapid development of technology, social communication networks became the primary tools in engaging a conversation. The increased amount of communication over the Internet has led to enormous communication data. As a consequence, cyberbullying became a major threat in online communication. Cyberbullying is defined as “bullying that takes place over digital devices like cell phones, computers, and tablets” (stopbullying.gov). Before the prevalence of cyberbullies, there was traditional bullying. The traditional bullying consists of direct and indirect harassment that causes physical harm to the victim. On the other hand, cyberbullying attacks the targeted person by sending hateful comments and humiliate by spreading rumors through technological devices. Traditional bullying and cyberbullying affect the well-being of people. According to Garrett Renee, a licensed clinical social worker and Psychotherapist, informs that “bullying can lead to mental and behavioral health issues and an increased risk of suicide” (1). With these findings, this leads to a question; Is social media sites generating more bullying in our community? While intervention of anti-bullying programs at school produced a reduction in bullying for more than 20% (Amy DisBasilio), cyberbullying continues to grow. Due to the rapid growth of advancement in communication in 2006, schools and parents have been inadequate to teach their kids on how to combat online bullying. This failure has been a consequence of numerous critical trends: implementation of ineffective anti-bullying, the introduction of the retweet functionality, and the lack of identity control.

Bullying in schools is one of the issues that is constantly getting attention from parents, educators and researchers. In the early 20’s, bullying has become the new norm for many adolescents. According to the research by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) - an organization founded by the United States Department of Education, NCES found that bullying is becoming more prevalent in school. From their conducted survey regarding bullying at school in 2001, they found that “14 percent of students ages 12 through 18 reported that they had been bullied at school in the 6 months prior to the interview” (NCES 7). Students were bullied in both direct and indirect approaches. Direct bullying consists of physical assault such as punching, kicking, and pushing, while indirect bullying includes the kind of isolation and deliberate exclusion from activities. The impact of these two types of bullying can be detrimental to students' well-being. According to the nation’s leading bullying expert, Joel D. Haber, Ph.D., Haber and his colleagues deduced that face-to-face toxic interactions can result in long-term emotional inflictions to victims, such as “low self-esteem, depression, anger, school failure and avoidance, and in some cases, school violence or suicide” (2). In the following NCES’s survey, they also found that only 13% of students were reporting the victimization in schools with supervision by police officers, security officers, or staff hallway monitors. Bullying causes victims to feel powerless and weak; as a result, they endure in silence because they become frighten that it may worsen their bullies. As a response to the prevalence of bullying, many schools have started to implement the anti-bullying program to educate kids, teachers, and parents on how to combat the harassments.

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Although many researchers have reported that the implementation of anti-bullying programs shows a positive effect in decreasing bullying at school, it has been proven that the change is too small to be entirely /significantly effective. According to Health Behavior in School-Aged Children, from their study on examining behaviors of adolescents from 195 different schools in 2005 to 2006, researchers found that “the majority of schools have bullying prevention programs (65.4%)” (qtd in Jeong 5). The majority of schools have implemented various types of anti-bullying programs such as Gang Prevention programs and Safe Passage programs. These two intervention programs have been reported to be effective in decreasing bullying victimization and antisocial behaviors through a comprehensive approach. However, Seokjin Jeong, associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at University of Texas ,and his colleagues claims that the prevention programs has no significant effect on reducing student victimization. According to their studies on the effectiveness of intervention strategies, they found that the schools with prevention programs resulted in a lack of reporting victimization at school. As a result, “students attending bullying prevention programs were more likely to have experienced peer victimization” (Jeong 7). The findings of this study shows that these programs were counter effective in educating students to prevent bullying, instead motivating perpetrators to continue their devious acts. These interventions are not motivating enough for students to apply it, which explains the insignificant decrease in bullying. Furthermore, the implementation of intervention programs has incentivized bullying amongst teenagers. Because of the ineffectiveness in education of anti-bullying, the bullying also expanded outside of the school.

When the implementation of anti-bullying has become popular for many schools in 2005, the evolution of technology was also occurring at the same time. Various inventions of social media has created an opportunity for more communications, which influenced the way people interact with each other. According to Ted Feinberg, an assistant executive director of the National Association of School Psychologists, found that the amount spent using the Internet amongst teenagers between 12 to 17 years old has grown to approximately 93 percent between 2004 and 2008. The introduction of social media has enabled people to communicate online without any delays and created a place to post and share content easily. This event has perpetuated the bullying among youth. While the use of social media has become more routine, cyberbullying has become a threat to many communities on the Internet. Many social media platforms has allowed users to post and share hateful comments without any restrictions due to the lack of regulation that prohibits hate speech. Patching and Hinduja conducted an online survey in 2006 with the participants of 384 minorities. The results found various types of cyberbullying; adolescents were “ignored (60.4%), disrespected (50%), called names (29.9%), threaten (21.4%), picked on (19.8%), made fun of (19.3%), and having rumors spread about them (18.8%)” (qtd in Li 375). Furthermore, the study finds that it shows a positive relationship between school bullying and cyberbullying. According to Li, a student who is being harassed at school may be harassed online as well. The results of the survey showed that over one-third of adolescents who were bullied at school were also experiencing bullies online. Through these findings, it can be shown that ineffectual intervention programs of bullying at school has perpetuated the bully with the invention of the Internet, and the lack of enforcement to prevent cyberbullying caused more prevalence in bullying one another.

As cyber bullying became more prominent to society, many parents have tried to help their children by reporting the issue to their school. Caitlin Whitten is one of the victims of cyberbullying in 2004. Caitlin started to receive anonymous messages via Social Media. When her mother Kimberly discovered that her daughter was receiving threatening messages, she asked for help from the school. However, the principal refused to discuss the problem as they concluded that bullying online has nothing to do with the school (Haggert). After 2 years, one of the national law enforcement leader’s organization, Fight Crime estimated that over 13 million children and adolescence were affected by cyberbullying. This episode indicates that many schools have been slow to acknowledge the cyberbullying. As a result, harassment online continued to affect their well-being as they didn’t know how to escape its portal of attack from places where they have access to the Internet.

Many social media companies have made little or no progress in tackling cyberbullying. Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms with an average of 139 million daily users (Omnicore). Although the use of Twitter can be beneficial for many events, their social platforms are attracting more hate speech through online today. Twitter was founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey and his colleagues in hopes to allow users to express their opinions easily and share information with others. However, with the production of “Retweet” functionality in 2008, the feature became an essential tool in attacking the victims. Retweet functionality is simply a re-posting content. Followers are notified whenever their following users posts a new tweet. Followers is a terminology for a person who follows and receive tweets from a Twitter user. From timeline page, their following user’s tweets will be displayed. The primary motivates of retweeting is “to inform or entertain a specific audience, to spread or amplify tweets to a new audience” (Alim 34). According to Sophia Alim, Ph.D., an active researcher in the field of online social networks, she concludes that “tweets containing negative emotions were more likely to be retweeted in comparison to those containing positive emotions” (35). With her findings, it can be shown that posting hateful comments on twitter results in attracting more cyberbullying online.

A specific example relating to Twitter involves teenager Millie Bobby Brown, a 15 years old actress from a tv show Stranger Things. In November 2017, one of the accounts who go by the name Kelsey Fiona tweeted, “I saw Millie Bobby Brown in the airport and asked her for a pic, and she said ‘only if you remove the hijab’ and I said ‘it’s my faith’ and she aggressively pulled it off my head and stamped on it” (Twitter). In just a few days, the post was retweeted for more than 130 times. After the numerous amounts of retweets, the #TakeDownMillieBobbyBrown emerged which lea many other users to start posting false rumors because they thought it was funny. Many users started to claim that Brown was violent and homophobic (Polygon). Because of the retweet functionality that made false rumors to spread easily with just one click of a button, Brown became a target of cyberbullying.

Another social media that perpetuated the cyberbullying is Ask.fm. The lack of identity control setting made perpetrators to attack their targeted person comfortably. As the popularity of social media grew in late 20’s, Ask.fm was introduced in 2011. Ask.fm is a social media platform that allows users to interact with each other by asking and answering questions. According to the Business Insider, there were nine adolescent users have committed suicide in 2013. When asking a question, users are given an option to ask questions anonymously. With this feature, sending a hateful comment can easily be made. As a side effect, the bullying “may increase the effect and lead to a reduction of individual responsibility over their actions” (Achmad et al. 439). While Ask.fm is an excellent tool in getting to know the person by asking a question, many perpetrators used in a way that affects their targeted person negatively by sending hurtful messages.

Altogether, it is clear that various events have contributed to worsening the cyberbullying. The anti-bullying programs at school became an essential learning tool for abusers by gaining new techniques on how to attack their targeted person. The introduction of social media was also the cause of incentivizing the bullying among many others due to the convenient reposting tools from Twitter that resulted in more hate speech online, and the anonymous options that enabled Ask.fm users to post and harass others. As more technology develops, it is easy to predict that cyberbullying will also continue to grow. An efficient solution must be enforced to prevent from repeating the cycle of bullies.

Work Cited

1. This is a classic.” Twitter, 13 Jun. 2018, 8:27 A.M., twitter.com/conorgrnt/status/1006921113476222977. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
2. Alim, Sophia. “Analysis of Tweets Related to Cyberbullying.” International Journal of Cyber Behavior, Psychology and Learning, Jan. 2008. Pp. 439. www.researchgate.net/publication/293644486_Analysis_of_Tweets_Related_to_Cyberbullying. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
3. DiBasilio, Amy. “Reducing Bullying in Middle School Students through the Use of Student- Leaders” ResearchGate, 5 Jan. 2008. www.researchgate.net/publication/234600349_Reducing_Bullying_in_Middle_School_Students_through_the_Use_of_Student-Leaders. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
4. Edward, Jim. “Users On This Web Site Have Successfully Driven Nine Teenagers To Kill Themselves.” Business Insider, 16 Sep. 2013, www.businessinsider.com/askfm-and-teen-suicides-2013-9. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
5. Feinberg, Ted, and Nicole Robey. “Cyberbullying.” Principal Leadership, vol. 9, no. 1, 2008, pp. 10-14. ProQuest, ezproxy.ivc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.ivc.edu/docview/233318080?accountid=39837. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
6. Harber, Joel D et al. “A Cyberbullying Protection Plan.” The Camping Magazine, vol. 84, no. 2, Mar, 2011, pp. 32-37. ProQuest, ezproxy.ivc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.ivc.edu/docview/857094013?accountid=39837. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
7. Jeong, Seokjin and Byung Hyun Lee. “A Multilevel Examination of Peer Victimization and Bullying Preventions in Schools” Journal of Criminology, vol. 2013, 4 Mar. 2013, pp. 5-7. Hindawi, www.hindawi.com/journals/jcrim/2013/735397. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
8. Li, Qing. “Cyberbullying in High Schools: A Study of Students’ Behaviors and Beliefs about This New Phenomenon.” Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma. 25 May. 2010, pp. 375. www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10926771003788979. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
9. Radulovic, Patrana and Palmer Haasch. “How an ironic, abusive meme drove Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown off Twitter.” Polygon, 14 Jun. 2018, www.polygon.com/2018/6/14/17463404/millie-bobby-brown-meme-twitter-deactivation. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
10. Renee, Garrett et al. “Associations between social media and cyberbullying: a review of the literature.” National Center for Biotechnology Information, The National Library of Medicine, 10 Dec. 2016, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5344141. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
11. Shelley, Divnich H. “Clicks & Phones can Break My Bones.” Today’s Parent, vol. 21, no. 8, 09, 2004, pp. 92-92,94,96. ProQuest, ezproxy.ivc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.ivc.edu/docview/232903338?accountid=39837. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
12. Zainal Abidin Achmad et al. “Teenagers are Subjected to CyberBullying in Social Media Ask.fm.” ResearchGate, Nov. 2016. www.researchgate.net/publication/326488893_Teenagers_are_Subjected_to_CyberBullying_in_Social_Media_Askfm. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
13. “Student Reports of Bullying: Results from the 2001 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey.” National Center for Education Statistics, 27 Jul. 2005, nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/2005310.pdf. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
14. “Twitter by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts.” Omnicore, Omnicore Group, 5 Sep. 2019. www.omnicoreagency.com/twitter-statistics. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.
15. “What Is Cyberbullying.” Stopbullying.gov, StopBullying.gov Editorial Board, www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/what-is-it/index.html. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.

Writer’s Reflection

In the process of writing this essay, I learned that the anti-bullying programs have a counter effect as the perpetrators gained new techniques to harass their targeted person. I honestly could not find anything I like about this essay. It became messy, and I wish that I could start over again. I actually started over the day before its due because my friends told me that I was not following the prompt correctly. I wrote another 900 words for this essay last night, but I decided to give up because there was a possibility that I may not be able to finish on time. It makes me so sad because I spent so much time writing this essay and thinking I was on the right track, but it turned out completely wrong. Based on understanding the requirements and rubrics, I would not give myself an A this time because I misunderstood the prompt. It hurts to admit it, but it's clear that my essay is far from perfect. In the future, I don't want to make the same mistake again. I will probably use the unfinished essay for the final essay as a part of explaining historical events. Thank you for reading my essay.