Causes and Effects of Cyberbullying

Audience: parents oblivious to their children’s online behavior Purpose: to inform Why can a plan not be put in place to simply stop cyberbullying altogether? Sadly, seventy-four percent of college surveyors claimed that enforced policies would take little or no effect on online bullying behavior whatsoever. Cyberbullying affects our youth in many ways for several reasons, and the outcomes can be disheartening. What causes cyberbullying? While this is a debatable topic, several sources will claim that bad history at home is the root of cyberbullying. Children may tend to morph into cruel beings while they are away from home in order to feel less taken aback by what happens behind closed doors. For example, an adolescent who is being abused at home may reflect this behavior onto his or her peers in order to balance out the victimization.

As written by Gabriel in “What are the Causes of Cyber Bullying?,” some victims choose to harass others because their upbringings lead them to believe that “some people deserve to be bullied.” Secondly, cyberbullying may be caused by a person’s perspective on society. Reading the comments on a celebrity’s Instagram post, watching embarrassing Youtube videos of an unwilling subject, or seeing Tweets that directly insult someone could all lead to an individual believing that this behavior is acceptable. A known fact: children grow mentally through the things that take place around them. A person could assume that a child who is raised in an abusive home has the potential to become an aggressive adult, and this idea follows through with cyberbullying. A child who sees abusive content every time he or she goes online could grow up to hurt others from behind his or her computer screen. What does cyberbullying affect? A victim of intense cyberbullying is likely to develop mental instability. Things like anxiety, depression, or even suicide can happen as a result of cyberbullying. Because the abuse is often anonymous, an abuser holds minimal public responsibility for a victim’s mental wounds, unless the abuser announces his or her wrongdoings.

A person who is being cyberbullied will often feel unsafe in every aspect of his or her life. This constant paranoia could cause a person to break down mentally and lose the confidence needed to be publically present in any setting, like posting online or even walking outside. Lastly, cyberbullying can affect a person’s focus toward education. High school and college can be strugglesome without intrusive online abuse. Some assignments today are required to be submitted online, and will not be accepted otherwise. Imagine a person attempting to complete an assignment while his or his inbox is being bombarded with nasty comments or hateful posts. Presumably, this cyberviolence can become very distracting and interrupt a person’s ability to fulfill an educational expectation.

While this argument may seem slightly forced, a study from a religious university showed that a shocking 84.5 percent of students reported that some level of cyberbullying occurs at the university (Slovak 154). Overall, cyberbullying can cause harm to mental or physical health for uncertain reasons that are still not justified. Some youth choose to cyberbully because they are taught inside their homes to be aggressive. Others do it because society says to do so. Until this abuse stops, adolescents will continue to struggle mentally and educationally. The behavior of children on social media should be monitored as to keep children out of this harm’s way until a foolproof solution is discovered.

Works Cited:

Slovak, Karen, et al. “Perceptions of Experiences of Cyberbullying at a Faith-Based University.”

EBSCO Host, 2015, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&AN=102583479&site=edslivet “What are the Causes of Cyber Bullying?”

English BINUS University, 22 June 2015, english.binus.ac.id/2015/06/22/what-are-the-causes-of-cyber-bullying/.

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