Cyberbullying: Bullying and Possible Solutions

Cyberbullying has become one of the main problem in today`s world, which is under the influence of social networking. Nowadays, more and more young people at the age of twelve from to seventeen claim that they have been subjected to the attacks of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is an act of online bullying, which represents anonymous nasty comments and messages that can hurt a person psychologically or even physically (safetyweb.com, 2012). The purpose of this essay is to recognize the problems of cyber bullying and to find any possible solutions for it.

So, first of all, this essay will show the problems of the cyber bullying. Secondly, there will be some solutions and evaluations of these problems.

There are a number of problems connected with cyberbullying, but a psychological state of victim teenagers is one of the most important. According to the website pcmag.com, 88% of all users of social networking stated that they saw how somebody said unkind things to their peers.

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It is clear that 26% of girls 12 to 17 treat their peers more than boys (ibid.). So it is clear that unkind comments and messages have a great impact on the psychological states of teemagers.

Depressions, tantrums, appetite changes and changes in behavior are an important sign of cyberbullying (safetyweb.com). Cyberbullying can influence that the teenager stops participating in social life, inwards him or her and it may even lead to suicide. Moreover, there is one more specific problem is bad grades. The victims might stop going to school, because they are afraid of their peers due to cyber bullying.

This will lead to bad grades and the possibility that a child looses his chance for education. So we can see a series of problems and now move on to their possible solutions.

According to Palfrey (2009) there are few solutions. For instance, it is a rational decision to provide a psychological help for victims by talking with them and helping to forget about accidents. Furthermore, adults can “get the whole story and listen closely to child`s feelings” (safetyweb.com). It is clear that there must be a strict punishment for bullies such as special fines. It is also an opportunity to provide an education for them and possibly for their parents. In case of school, teachers can help victims to increase their grades. Also school can provide a safe process of education for victim children. As for social websites, it is possible to avoid anonymity by entering a real-name policy (BBC program Panorama).

According to possible solutions, we need to understand that all these solutions have a great number of consequences. For example, psychological help for victims can cost a considerable amount of money, because people will need to provide classes and courses for specialists. It might also cannot be efficient. If we were talking about bullies, it would be almost impossible to recognize who the bullies were due to anonymity. If police finds the bullies it would be illegal to fine children, so their parent will have to pay fines. Nevertheless, it will be also hard, because parents could refuse to pay money or the welfare of the families would not let paying such penalties.

To summarize all of the information we can see that there are some possible solutions, such as psychological training for victims and punishment for bullies, but, unfortunately, these solutions are hard or even impossible to implement, because they cost money, take time and in most cases are not efficient.

References:
1. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397419,00.asp (Acesses 12.02.12) D. Poeter 2. http://www.safetyweb.com/poster (Acesses 12.02.12)
3. http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2009/04/01_cyberbullying.html#BodyWrapper (Acesses 12.02.12) 4. http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01c00y3/
(Acesses 12.02.12)