Informative Essay on Cyber Bullying

As time passes, technology advances.
With every advancement that comes it seems that the children of the generation are given a new way to harass each other; the hottest thing this generation being bullying through the use of e-technologies. For those of you who don’t know what e-technologies are, here are some examples: cell phones, text messages, multimedia messages, e-mail, and any web page accessed through the web such as myspace and or facebook. This problem that is so common among children requires us all to come together, parents, children and their schools, to stop it.Since the motives of cyber bullies differ, the solutions and responses to each type of cyber bullying incident has to differ too. Unfortunately, there is no “one size fits all” when cyber bullying is concerned. Only two of the types of cyber bullies have something in common with the traditional schoolyard bully. Experts who understand schoolyard bullying often misunderstand cyber bullying, thinking it is just another method of bullying.
But the motives and the nature of cyber communications, as well as the demographic and profile of a cyber bully differ from their offline counterpart.Cyber bullying is when someone repeatedly harasses, mistreats, or makes fun of another person online or while using cell phones or other electronic devices. Available research and experience suggest that cyber bullying may differ from more “traditional” forms of bullying in a number of ways including: Cyber bullying can occur any time of the day or night, which makes it hard to stop in the heat of the moment. Cyber bullying messages and images can be distributed quickly to a very wide audience that makes the victim feel helpless.Children and youth can be anonymous when cyber bullying, which makes it difficult, and sometimes impossible, to trace them. Bullying has been around forever but cyber bullying is different because it lets a bully remain anonymous. It is easier to bully in cyberspace than it is to bully face to face.

With cyber bullying a bully can pick on people with much less risk of being caught. Bullies are natural instigators and in cyberspace bullies can enlist the participation of other students who may be unwilling to bully in the real world.Kids who stand around doing nothing in a real life bullying incident often become active participants in online harassment. The detachment afforded by cyberspace makes bullies out of people who would never become involved in a real life incident. The Internet makes bullying more convenient and since the victim’s reaction remains unseen people who wouldn’t normally bully don’t take it as seriously. One of the many questions we need to ask ourselves is, “Where are the parents at while all the harassing is going on? . No Its not a question that can be answered, but the answer that would really slow down this epidemic would be, “over their shoulder”.
I mean that more figuratively than literally. However, weather the parents are literally over their shoulder, peeking at every click, stroke, and post that their child makes or sitting back, thoroughly going over the cell phone billing report, browsing the internet history from time to time, and checking e-mails, we would see a decrease in the number of cyber bullying incidents.I say that parents and children need to come together in order to stop cyber bullying because 51% of preteens and only 35% of teens who had been cyber bullied had told their parents about their experience because they were afraid that their parents may make it worse. It is important that parents play a role in stopping cyber bullying. Indeed, it is vital that parents pay attention and be open with their children and invite their confidences. If your child is a cyber bully, you should make clear rules about appropriate online behavior, and have consequences, such as losing accounts or computer time, if they break the rules.You can work with schools to help stop cyber bullying, and work with other parents to try and prevent it.
Make sure your child knows that he or she can come to you if there is a problem online. This generation is raised on the idea that telling on each other is a bad thing, that’s why so much of this goes on without being passed on to a responsible adult that would understand the seriousness of the situation and be able to make an educated decision on what actions should be taken.When schools try and get involved by disciplining the student for cyber bullying actions that took place off campus and outside of school hours, they are often sued for exceeding their authority and violating the student’s free speech right. They also, often lose. Schools can be very effective brokers in working with the parents to stop and remedy cyber bullying situations. They can also educate the students on cyber ethics and the law.If schools are creative, they can sometimes avoid the claim that their actions exceeded their legal authority for off-campus cyber bullying actions.
We recommend that a provision is added to the school’s acceptable use policy reserving the right to discipline the student for actions taken off-campus if they are intended to have an effect on a student or they adversely affect the safety and well-being of student while in school.This makes it a contractual, not a constitutional, issue. Cyber bullying is fueled by the response from the victims, so we need to encourage the youth to be the “bigger man” and not respond to the immature comments and remarks. Although you don’t want to reply, never delete the messages or comments, save them in a folder on your computer, or print them out and store them for evidence if it should escalate into a bigger issue that involves the police or even the court system.