The Cyberbullying Epidemic

Bullying has always affected teens and children in some form or another, but in modern times, with the advent of the internet and social networking, we have the first generations of young people facing a much more insidious assailment: cyberbullying. It is one much stronger than what traditional bullying once was, and poses problems of greater magnitude. For victims, this fairly new entity of social aggression has them facing substantially greater intimidation and emotional harm. Several issues even arise in protecting these victims.

First, the inherent element of cyberbullying is that it’s everywhere. It’s so widespread, it is present to the victim in a completely different way than physical or verbal abuse. The heavy reliance everyone now has on technology social media creates the platform for cyberbullying, and this is what makes victims extremely susceptible. Victim and bully alike have readily available access to the interwebs. These kids can’t just find a place to hide from it like they would from bullies at school, or the “real-life” bullies (Todd). When bullying is through the internet and other electronic communications, it is omnipresent to the victim because of the internet’s nature. Some people may think it isn’t any big deal, and it’s not like anyone’s being punched. However, hate spoken aloud or punches thrown only occur and damage in that moment, but on the internet, it’s out there there for the long term. Emotional distress follows suit in that long term. Now suicide rates in teens and children are sky high, and a major factor in that is depression from cyberbullying (Todd). When victims can’t identify the attacker, they are bound to feel much more helpless in those situations, because they may often feel...

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...inds of bullying, regardless of where they occur, are harmful (Todd). However, if the psychological wounds from cyberbullying are proven to be much more serious, it needs to be taken much more seriously in the law.

Cyberbullying has come to be a whole new social problem and has put a name to itself setting it apart from what bullying traditionally is. Its inherent natures lead to many problems that old-style bullying never created. It makes victims a lot more vulnerable than before. Aggressors are at so many advantages from the characteristics of social technology, it enumerates bullies much higher than a school-yard pack. In fact, so many rules in our criminal justice system end up up protecting the oppressors, and leaving the victims defenseless, people may begin to question the lawmakers. It seems to raise the question of whose side are they on: bully or victim?