Cyberbullying Research Paper

The current cyberbullying research paper discusses the issue of bullying in cyberspace, its forms, and reasons. In addition, the paper gives characteristics of bullies and the victims of bullying. The paper also covers the negative effects of cyberbullying on the wellbeing and health of victims. Reading this research paper, you will obtain more knowledge and insight into the burning issue.

Determining the Notion “Bullying”

The term ‘bullying’ denotes an aggressive, deliberate, and repeated attitude of a person or a group towards a victim who is unable to defend him-/herself. With the development of the Internet and digital devices, cyberbullying appeared. Cyberbullying is considered as a threatening intentional behavior on the web via emails and social networks. In addition, cyberbullying manifests itself through images, videos, calls, text messages, and comments left on the websites. Though offensive actions take place in cyberspace, a victim of cyberbullying usually experiences problems in a real life. Online offence leads to psychosocial disorders and suicide. Therefore, any aggressive attitude towards a person on the Internet may lead to fatal consequences.

The cyberbullying research paper emphasizes that cyberbullying is spread among the youth and other users due to the popularity of social networks. According to the recent research, 27% of students were the victims of aggressive behavior at least once in their life. Moreover, 8% of learners are offended on a regular basis. The reactions of victims depend on many factors, including the people’s awareness of the aggressive incidents. It means that the incident becomes more offensive if many people know about it. As a result, a victim of cyberbullying tries to keep the incident secret, telling only the closest friends about it. In this case, teachers and parents do not know about aggressive attacks on the students and cannot help them cope with the problem. In addition, they cannot change the situation or influence the parties of the conflict. Sometimes, the victims do not tell everyone about cyberbullying, which leads to stress and depression.

The cyberbullying research paper notes that there are different levels of awareness of different forms of cyberbullying. According to the statistics, 40% of people know about pictures and videos bullying. At the same time, 35% of people are aware of bullying via the phone calls while 27% know about bullying through the messages and emails. Since there is a direct connection between the people’s awareness of bullying incidents and victims’ reactions on them, the intention to dissemble cyberbullying attacks may be regarded as an attempt to prevent victims from possible negative consequences.

Forms of Cyberbullying

The current cyberbullying research paper proves that different people perceive cyberbullying differently. The responses to the intentional aggressive behavior depend on such factors as gender, age, and psychological state. Many researchers claim that females engage in cyberbullying, both as bullies and victims, more often than males since boys prefer physical bullying. Such results can be explained by the fact that girls tend towards indirect aggression while boys tend towards direct physical aggression in the form of fights. It can be said that bullying strategies chosen by females can be successfully implemented on the Internet. The main forms of cyberbullying by girls include spreading rumors, oppressing victims, and making them feel lonely. Cyberbullying includes threats and humiliation based on individual’s ethnicity, appearance, or worldview. As a result, females can be abused when they do not meet beauty standards, do not join any social group, or do not take an active part in social life. It should be mentioned that bullies are characterized as strong and confident individuals while the victims of bullying are shy and embarrassed. As it is seen, many forms of bullying have been moved to cyberspace resulting in aggressive attacks on the vulnerable youth. It shows the lack of sympathy and tolerance in the modern society.

The cyberbullying research paper states that even though this form of behavior takes place on the Internet, the consequences arise in the real world. Constant abuse and aggressive attacks have a negative impact on the self-esteem, psychological state, and overall wellbeing of a victim. Sometimes, offensive messages influence the behavior of victims. For example, a skinny girl, who is bullied as obsessive, consequently may fall under the influence and start thinking that she is fat. As a result, the girl forms body image distortion that can lead to death. At the same time, a bully believes that this is just a funny thing to do that improves his/her self-esteem. Along with the media coverage and unacceptable beauty standards, cyberbullying has an effect on the self-perception of many young girls resulting in changing their eating habits as well as relationships with others in a negative way. Cyberbullying may lead to bulimia or anorexia nervosa, which harm the health of females. In addition, constant offensive actions influence the wellbeing and personal development of victims. Therefore, in-depth research on cyberbullying should be conducted in order to come up with the effective ways of ceasing this form of aggression.

The current cyberbullying research paper places a great emphasis on the fact that cyberbullying is a hot topic in the present-day society. Many people know about the aggressive behavior and offensive actions that take place on the Internet via messages, emails, calls, videos, pictures, etc. It is also proved that there is a connection between the people’s awareness of cyberbullying and the bullying process itself. It is shown that girls are more often engaged in bullying in cyberspace than boys. Nevertheless, both males and females can become the victims of the online aggressive and offensive attacks. Therefore, efficient strategies for dealing with the problem should be implemented.