The Impact Of Cyberbullying

Assumptions/Perspectives

As previously stated in this paper there are two sides to this problem; namely, that cyberbullying has more of an impact than traditional bullying or that traditional bullying has more of an impact than cyberbullying does. Now this paper will examine and present evidence for both sides of the issue.

First, there is some evidence that supports the claim that traditional offline bullying has more of an impact than cyberbullying. For example, one aspect about relating to the ethics of the situation is that for cyberbullying, physical violence can only be threatened; it cannot actually be carried out via technology. This means that traditional physical bullying could have more of an impact than cyberbullying, since these

These effects include anxiety and depression at heightened levels, as well as psychosomatic issues that may arise, at least for the victims of the bullying. Additionally, social and interpersonal interactions will be more difficult for the victim of the bullying, and more students who are bullied do not do as well in academics and are also more likely to miss school more frequently than those who are not victimized by bullies (Campbell, 2005). According to Schneider et al. there are additional negative impacts including lower amounts of satisfaction at school and lower levels of commitment to school, meaning there was less attachment

Campbell (2005) claims that cyberbullying has more of an impact because it is psychological and verbal in nature, which has more negative effects that are long term.

Another issue is that cyberbullying can be completely anonymous, which leads to less power on the victim’s part, and the victim may act more boldly than they would in a face-to-face encounter (Campbell, 2005). This pertains to the imbalance of power that bullies wield over their victims. In addition, as regards repetition, those who experience physical bullying are at least able to have some respite from the bullying. With cyberbullying, the bullying can occur anytime, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week (Dooley et al., 2009).

As Campbell aptly states, the written word can be extremely powerful. While a face-to-face bullying experience may be very hard to forget, a cyberbullying experience is etched in the victim’s memory because words sent through technological means can be read over and over again; they cannot be forgotten, and they are more concrete than spoken language