My Journey in New Media Journalism...

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Cyber Bullying- A Serious Problem on the Rise...


Many parents are not aware of the negative impact that cyber bullying can cause to a child. Unfortunately, research shows that cyber bullying is becoming a huge epidemic in cyber space among children.
 
Girls are twice as likely as boys to be cyber bullies as well as be targeted by cyber bullies.  Normally, boys are the most likely children to bully others but this is not true with cyber bullying.  Girls tend to use emotional methods, which can be perfectly carried out over the computer.  Cyber bullying can be anonymous and many children who are the victims of cyber bullying never know who was bullying them.

According to the Cyber bullying Research Center, there has been an increase in the number of children who are thinking about attempting suicide or attempted suicide in the past year.

The following graph is based on data taken from 2,000 randomly middle school children from the most populated US districts.

20% Reported seriously thinking about attempting suicide. (19.7% females, 20.9% males).  19% reported attempting suicide (17.9% females, 20.2% males).

Many people consider bullying to be a normal part of growing up. Unfortunately, today's form of bullying has become quite different by making kids vulnerable 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

These examples about cyber bullying and technology were taken from 4,441 random children and teenagers between the ages of 10 and 18 from 37 schools districts in the southern U.S.


Nearly 33 percent of the males and more than 36 percent of the females reported to be victims of cyber bullying, with chat rooms being the most common online location. (Males accounted for 23.8 percent of this response, and females accounted for 24.2 percent.)


After all, children are often not aware of the damage and the ramification can occur as a consequence of cyber bullying, and will continue if adults do not step in to stop them. Even if children know the damage they can cause, chances are they will not stop until adults take action.

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