Article:The rise of cyber-bullying
Reader Digest page: 115-119
Written by: Phil Mckenna

A 2007 study by the US-based Pew Unternet and American Life Project found that one-third of merican teen internet users have been targets of cyber bullies. And as online communications evolves from chatrooms and instant messaging to social networking, the venues where bullying occurs are becoming more central to young people's lives. Research into cyber-bullying is still in its infancy. But it is becoming more clear that aspects of online communication encourage prople to act aggressively, prompting them to do things they would'nt dare try in real life.

The ability to reach more people, and the always-on culture of the internet, means cyber-bullying can have an even more detrimental effect on the victim than the conventianl variety. "It's schoolyard bullying taken to the next leve," says Justin Patchin, a criminologist at the University of Wisconsin.

A 2006 study by the UK-based internet market research firm YouGov found out that for one in eight young people, cyber bullying is even worse than physical bullying. One reason for this is the sheer number of people who can view anything posted online. "It would be bad enough to be cyber bullied by one kid when nobody elso knows about it, but a video sen by hundreds or thousands of your peers can be devastating," says Robin Kowalski, a psychologist at Clemson University in South Carolina and co-author of the book Cyber Bullying: Bullying in the Digital Age.

Ghyslain Raza, aka " the Stars Wars Kid," learnt this the hard way. In the 2002, the overweight and awkward Canadian adoloscent made a video of himself playing with a pretend li8ght sabre, and left it lying around at school. When his classmates found the video in 2003, they posted it online as a joke. Raza was so distressed, he finshed the school year froma psychiatric ward. Unfortuanately for him, it wasn't his friends who found the footage so amusing. According to UK marketing film The Viral Factory, it became the most downloaded video of 2006.

Reflections: I think that to be cyber-bullying others are really bad things and things that should'nt be done at all as this causes the one to be cyber bullied to be hurt and may causes damage to the person even though its through a computer because it may cause hurt to that person pride and some may even starts to have psychology problems and may cause the person to suffer from some mental problems.

These are much more worser than physical bullying because if the person was beaten up, the bruises may heal quickly but whereas for psychology problems, it sure needs to take a long time before the person may recover or it may not even recover because of the deep hurt of pride. Besides that, i think those who cyber-bully are the ones that are more coward as they bully the people they dosen't really like behind the screens and are more likely to be described as underhand means. These people may have result to this means may be beacuse they had been offended and as they are mostly teenagers, may not like it and try to find a way for revenge which will make the person who offended them to 'pay the price'.

These acts are also seemed to be cowardly and that maybe it was just for the fun of it. But consequences have also to be thought. This is beacause not all people would be able to take the joke if it will hurt their pride esteem deeply and nobody would like to become the joke of the day. Thus, i feel that people who think that its fun to cyber bully is wrong and that they should think more of the consequences before deciding to act because it may cause the person who is being cyber-bullied to have the need to carry the hurt for the whole of their life. They should instead, try to tell the person whom they dislike whats wrong and try to be friends with him/her and not using this kinds of means to bully the people whom they dislike since it does not benefit either side and instead, hurt deeply.

Thus, i really hope that cyber-bullying can be controlled and although it may be a bit difficult, but at the least, decrease the number of cases of cyber-bullying. This can be done by giving talks to students or counselling them.

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