Negative Effects Of Cyberbullying

Chances are that you have a computer in your house with internet access and with interest in technology growing everyday so does cyber bullied. Cyberbullying is happening more than ever and with the percentage of cyber bullying increasing, how does this affect our youth? Studied have shown that the effects of cyberbullying can very from each person but all effects are negative and some go to extreme extent.

Cyberbullying is the use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature. Nearly 43% of kids have been bullied online and 1 in 4 have had it happen multiple times. Bullied victims are 2 to 9 times more likely to commit suicide and with the growth of technology rapidly

Kids that have been cyber bullied can experience symptoms of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and suicidal thoughts or actions. In research it states that being bullied online can also cause kids to lose interest in activities, change their eating or sleep patterns, have more health complaints, become involved with drugs and alcohol, receive lower grades, and can ever cause kids to want skip/miss school or even drop out.

One major effect of cyberbullying is depression. You can define depression as a serious medical condition in which a person feels very sad, hopeless, and unimportant and often is unable to live in a normal way. In other words the concert feeling of being sad. Researchers have discovered a strong link between depression and cyberbullying. A recent study by the US National Institutes of Health, reported by Reuters, found that victims of cyberbullying show more signs of depression than kids that are bullied. It is still not clear why depression occurs in victims of cyberbullying because depression can have various causes but some believe that cyberbullying can become more relentless and more frightening or more discouraging, especially when the bullying is

However, others have a different view. One article that was the opposite view of mine was titled “simply, internet bullying does not exist” ( “Why ‘Cyber Bullying’ Doesn’t Exist” 2). Dymals believes that “no one can assault you are the internet and that the very worst that they can do is call you names or say mean things about you, or perhaps photoshop your picture. And even then it need not have anything like the impact that equivalent verbal insults would be in the school playground, because the simple fact is that on the internet, you have to actively participate before you can label yourself a victim; namely, you have to make a point to read it” ( “Why ‘Cyber Bullying’ Doesn’t Exist” 5). Yes this might be somewhat right because you can just look away and turn off your computer but when you are getting talked about over social media is very hard to not want to look or to not hear about it or become involved in you are the object of ridicule and even though what Dymals say is true through this essay you can see that cyberbullying is real and can have life alternating effects with over 3 million kids per month are absent from school due to cyberbullying, 20% of kids cyberbullied think about suicide, and 1 in 10 attempt it and 4500 kids commit suicide each year due to bullying (Cyberbullying Rampant on the Internet 2). And with these statistics it is clearly shown that cyberbullying does exist, and that it