Purpose
Background: The adolescent population forms the most users of internet and consequently the most affected with cyberbullying. The negative impacts of cyberbullying among adolescents include social anxiety, lower self-esteem, and cognitive outcomes. This can be attributed to the risk factors that predispose teenagers to cyberbullying such as addictive technology behaviour and peer pressure.
The key issues of consideration in this brief are the negative impacts of cyberbullying among the adolescents, how cyberbullying causes these effects, risk factors of cyberbullying, and the recommendations for addressing negative impacts of cyberbullying.
This brief makes two major recommendations in effectively addressing the impacts of cyberbullying on adolescents. These include educational campaigns and digital citizenship initiatives.
The internet, mobile phones, and other advancements in technology have become part of Australian life. The development of these technologies has been of immense help to the youth (Rice, Milburn, & Monro, 2011). However, these technologies have also come with bullying habits that take place online called cyberbullying. Cyberbullying has for long been identified as in issue affecting the youth (Price, & Dalgleish, 2010). Nonetheless, the matter has had immense negative effects on adolescents as the number of them that use social medial increases (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, & Zickuhr, 2010). Cyberbullying has been defined as the recurrence of behaviour by a wrongdoer with the motive to inflict injury to a victim, in a situation of power imbalance that favours the wrongdoer (Chalmers et al., 2016). Examples of cyberbullying include sending mean or threatening messages or images, exposing ones privacy among others. Studies have shown that cyberbullying among adolescent leads to colossal distress including psychological and mental health harm, and even to suicide (Smith et al., 2008: Aricak et al., 2008). This brief aims at outlining the prevalence of cyberbullying among in Victoria, its impact on adolescents and recommendations for addressing cyberbullying.
Negative developmental outcomes that may be as a result of cyberbullying among adolescents include: social, emotional and cognitive impacts
Social anxiety is the mixture of fear, uneasiness and worry that individuals undergo when they foresee their inability to make an optimistic impression on others, especially in meetings within strangers in public places (Lee, Tam, & Chie, 2014). The study by Kowalski and Limber (2013) showed that social anxiety, stress and low self-esteem are both as a result and a precursor of cyberbullying habit. Consequently, adolescents that are victims of the above mentioned symptoms can be deemed as “an easy target” for constant online execution (Kowalski & Limber, 2013). Lee, Tam, & Chie (2014) found out that people suffering from social anxiety are more likely to resort to the use of social media and online texting as a means of communication
Background
The developmental stage of adolescence is a significant period when people develop their personal identity. The study by Beaty and Alexeyev (2008) show that cyberbullying victims are more inclined to experience lower self-esteem compared to non-victims.
DeHue, Bolman, & Völlink (2008) found out that some bullying leads to negative experiences in academics. For example, the Connolly study found out that about 90% of cyberbully victims had a drop in grades after the experience. Wallace (2011) also found out that fear of bullying made some students to skip classes and performed poorly.
Social anxiety is a disorder that takes place when an individual is fearful of humiliation or being perceived by others in a negative way. It is for this reason that individuals of such class are an easy target for cyberbullies. This can also be attributed to the fact that people who suffer from social anxiety more often use social media and internet as means of communication. The fear of segregation or denial that is experienced by most of the socially anxious people in social platforms is unavoidable in the world of internet (Stapinski et al., 2014). The outline of social media websites enhances intimidation and exclusion of individuals.
The development of one’s identity is the major issue that adolescents face (Gestsdottir & Lerner, 2008). In order to achieve this, the adolescents depend extensively on their social environment to accomplish this. The rise in the usage of social media and mobile technology amongst the adolescents is an indication that their social and emotional development takes place in cyberspace. The negative messages that are accompanied by cyberbullying makes the adolescents who are in a crisis of looking for self-identity to develop an unfavourable attitude towards oneself (Patchin & Hinduja, 2010).
Cyberbullying demotivates the adolescents who are constantly seeking for recognition and meaning in life. This is because cyberbullying causes the development of fear among the adolescents and they no longer feel worthy like their peers. This causes emotional distress and depression thus impairing the mind that is needful in academic performance. As a result the youth are demotivated to attend school and instead resort to become aggressive thus increasing their chances of dropping out of school (Konishi, Hymel, Zumbo, & Li, 2010).
Most of the adolescents cannot certainly operate without their mobile phones. Credible studies have linked internet addictions as precursors for increased addiction issues and are primary causal factors to cyberbullying activities. According to Erdur-Baker (2010), people who are frequent internet users have higher chances of being exposed to cyberbullying activities than non-users. The situation is made even worse with the increasing percentage of adolescents that use internet frequently.
How Cyberbullying Causes the Above Impacts
The advancement in technology has made it much easier and convenient for the adolescents in the 21st century to stay connected with friends. Most of social media platforms and text messaging services are imbedded with software which enable the users to confirm whether the messages have been delivered or read. The instant nature of these exchanges has caused dependence on instant feedback by some users. This piles pressure to respond to the texts immediately after delivery and has significantly contributed to adolescents being disconnected from normal life outside cyberspace. Rosen, Whaling, Rab, Carrier, & Cheever (2013) observes that such peer pressure leads to internet addiction causing anxiety and depression.
Key Issues
The negative impacts of cyberbullying are immense, but still proper implementation of the recommendations in this paper will be much beneficial in counteracting the negative impacts caused by cyberbullying. The implementation of educational campaigns to create awareness on cyberbullying among students, parents, counsellors and teachers will ensure that people become accountable of their online acts and thus will be cautious before committing cyberbullying acts. Educational campaigns will also ensure that there is easy reporting of such cases to relevant authorities thus helping to mitigate incidences of cyberbullying.
Digital citizenship initiatives should be incorporated in the school curriculums to ensure that the students have digital literacy thus leading to the development of confidence, self-esteem and self-efficacy when the teenagers are in online platform.
There is need for revamping policies and protocol on cyberbullying and the use of internet so that they become more specific and reliable with adolescent technological use. The rules should be reliable and well broadcasted so that all parents and adolescents are aware of the consequences associated with the usage of technology. Individuals should be held more answerable for any act of disobedience, and there is need for effective discipline of the adolescents to make sure that bullying culture is eradicated. Some of the policies might include restorative justice programs such as the implementation of digital citizenship training where teenagers are trained on how to become responsible digital citizens, strategies of attaining good character, and how to become compassionate and caring people (Chisholm, 2014). Bhat (2008) observes that restorative justice programs will ensure that cyberbullying victims freely express their feelings in relation to cyberbullying and can become much more responsible for their acts.
Cyberbullying students need to be provided with training in digital literacy. There is need for a current, applicable and relevant digital citizenship curriculum to meet the needs of the adolescents. Sense Media and Media Smarts (Notar, Padgett, & Roden, 2013) are examples of programs that offer effective lesson plans and activities that can easily be implemented in varying levels of grade. A digital literacy committee can be created to supervise the implementation of such programs. These programs are intended to develop confidence, self-esteem and self-efficacy when the teenagers are in online platform. Digital citizenship initiatives will also promote an ethic of care among adolescents leading to more respectful and responsible online adolescent users.
Influence or Peer Pressure
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