Cyber Bullying

From the school yard to the tips of our youth’s fingers, bullying has always been a part of the typical school life and unfortunately over the years it has only become worse. Due to the capabilities of today’s technology, items such as mobile phones, tablets and computers are the sole key to allowing us access to social media. Technology provides significant benefits, particularly to the young people of today however it needs to be noted that it also has a dark side (Campbell, 2005). This rapidly advancing technology has become the common denominator in this cruel cycle of a new form of bullying called cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is creating a leeway for school yard bullies to attack other class mates via the internet which has a substantially larger audience than say just the amount of students in an average sized class. Through the internet, some teenagers find it easier to talk because of the fact that they are not face to face with the other person, which makes it less confronting and embarrassing to open up about how they feel, however when cyber bullying comes into play some victims feel overwhelmed and this can affect them so badly that they can’t cope and often don’t know how to reach out for help, this, is some situations has caused the victim to attempt or even complete suicide. Teenagers of the twenty first century are hugely influenced through the use of the internet. If we were to look back a decade or two, we would see that very few people even knew what the internet was never mind social media and it certainly wasn’t at our fingertips as it is today. Dating back approximately thirty years, there was no such thing as cyber bullying. Today there’s no escape from it. Bullying was once confined to school grounds but now, some years on it has entered our homes and our lives in many possible capacities, and it is technology that has opened the door for this. Let’s face it; cyber bullying is an issue that is prevalent twenty four hours a day and