University Essay: Cyberbullying Compared to Traditional Bullying

This essay, written for a Skills for Academic Success course, delves into the escalating social problem of cyberbullying in comparison to traditional bullying. The introduction highlights the pervasive nature of digital technology and the rise of cybercrimes, particularly cyberbullying, emphasizing its unique characteristics. The essay contrasts traditional bullying, often occurring at school, with cyberbullying, which extends beyond the school environment due to the use of digital devices. It explores the modes of each type of bullying, including verbal, relational, and physical aggression in traditional bullying, and the anonymity and accessibility factors in cyberbullying. The analysis then discusses the long-term effects of cyberbullying, including its impact on teenagers' mental health, the role of anonymity, and the ease with which personal information can be exploited. The essay argues that cyberbullying is a greater social problem due to its pervasiveness and the psychological impact on victims, leading to depression, self-degradation, and a sense of isolation. The conclusion reinforces the argument that cyberbullying has a larger social impact than traditional bullying because of the mental health consequences and the fear victims have of reporting the incidents.

Skills for Academic Success
Topic: Is cyber-bullying a larger social problem than a more
traditional form of bullying?
Student’s name:
University name:
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Introduction
The modern digitalised era is no doubt the most promising and advanced technical one and
provides the best amenities to the civilised society but it also has the downright grotesque and
most gruesome side. The usage of electronic gadgets and extensive usage of the internet is
now the most common matter and people are addicted to it in spite of knowing the harmful
side of it. But for the extensive use of the utopian world of the cyber system people are
getting caught in the cybercrimes and the cyber-bullying is the most aggressive one in those
crimes (Olweus 2016). Cyber-bullying can be described as a type of bullying which is
different from the traditional type and takes the place in the digital gadgets like computers,
cell phones and tabloids (Corcoran, Guckin and Prentice 2015). This type of bullying can
mainly occur from the texts, applications, online forums and mostly from the social media
platforms. According to the concern of the topic, it is evident that in today's world the
cyberbullying is much more social problem rather than the traditional type. This essay is
going to be on the thesis point of gruesome impact of cyberbullying on teenagers rather
than the traditional bullying.
Modes of the bullying
Bullying the youth is a very common form in case of youth violence but in today's world, the
bullying has divided in two forms where one is the old traditional bullying and the second
one is the cyberbullying. The bullying typically occurs at the school but now due to the aid in
the electronic gadgets and the internet youth are able to extend the bullying beyond the
school vicinity. Cyberbullying in the extended version of the traditional bullying but
earmarked by lack of the guardianship and the physical distance between the bully and the
bullied. Traditional bullying can be defined as the aggressive violent ones and in the form of
harassments which mainly occurs at schools (Mishna et al. 2017). The traditional bullying
occurs due to the knowledge of each other’s weak points and mainly target those who are out
of the group like the nerds, or well-acquainted ones.
The traditional type of bullying mainly expressed on the mode of the aggression and this
mode of aggression is incorporated with verbal, relational and physical aggression. Verbal
aggression is entailed by the derogatory remarks and the name calling teasing and taunting
factors while the relational aggression consists of rumor spreading manipulation, exclusion
and intentional humiliation. The physical aggression is the attack of one youth towards
another one and consists of kicking, hitting, throwing and pushing. The cyberbullying is quite
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unique as there is anonymity, accessibility in personal details, bystanders invasion factors
incorporated in.
Logistic discussion of characteristics and impacts of the bullying
Cyberbullying is less physical than the traditional one but has a long term effect rather than a
traditional one. The situation is so dire that the small weak child can bully along with the big
brute boy and with much more impact than the traditional way. Face to face bullying don’t
have the long-time effect but the cyberbullying can break a teenager up to that extent that
depression and self-degradation can occur (Gualdo et al. 2015). The educators are required to
understand how powerful these kind of harassing are and impact the teenagers. According to
the famous Robert and Paris storm, the cyberbullying is harassment by using the electronic
medium for threatening or harming others. As because the cyberbullying can be done without
the face to face confrontation the kids and the teenagers who are into the cyber world are
emboldened with the false type of anonymous being and say or do things which they are not
able to in person. The identification of cyberbullying is quite tough rather than the traditional
one. The modern students and the teenagers are often very lax of the security in case of a user
name and the password they use and this lead to false writing and misrepresentation. The
impact is considered devastating in cyberbullying rather than the traditional type because
usage of the digital images, electronic means, and cell phones accelerate the speed of the
bully message. The teenagers get lured by the bullies sometimes and reveal very private
information of them be it an image or personal details and those are used later for the
harassments among the large audience (Horner, Asher and Fireman 2015).
The youngsters have direct access to the internet through mobile devices and personal
computers in school, home or the public areas. The adolescent is now linked with the social
media at the initial time of the emotional development and this lead to vulnerability in peer
pressure. The cyberbullying victims are not quite to the report due to the fear of the parent
restriction in the access of cell and internet in case of discovering the hidden information
which the adolescent mind has posted on the internet with sheer innocence (Neilsen-Hewett
and Bussey 2017). They are afraid of getting embarrassed being perceived as the weak one in
front of the elders and try to solve the problems by themselves only which make them more
depressed and inadequate to cop up with the outer world. It is reported that the motivation
behind the bullying is a lack of confidence in case of feeling better and the controlling desire
which make them feel elated.
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A logistic argue of traditional and cyberbullying and supporting the gruesome effect of
cyberbullying
The victims are affected by both traditional and cyberbullying and the aggressive behaviors
usually occur in the school while the, in contrast, is considered pervasive in the life of the
victims because it can happen at any time and in result the persistence of the behavior of the
bullying gives negative impact than the traditional one (Waasdorp and Bradshaw 2015). The
risk factors of cyberbullying are quite the same of traditional type along with the extra factors
like control exertion on the personal details, password sharing, communication with the
strangers and getting trap in some gruesome game and openly displaying the personal images
to the large audience in the social platform which can attract more bullies. It is not required to
be stronger to do cyberbullying and these people are tech savvy and can glamour their
electronic trails and can hack accounts, infect the computer, thief the identity and post
embarrassing pictures which lead the devastating consequences for the victims (Antoniadou
and Kokkinos 2015). It is evident now that cyberbullying is more intriguing and has
gruesome impacts on the victims and considered more of the social harm to the victims.
Conclusion
Cyberbullying has the most negative effect on young people’s mental health and well-being.
The bullying becomes unreported due to the fear of punishment from the elders and teachers
and getting embarrassed being embarked as the weak one. It is important to understand the
dire situation of cyberbullying rather than the traditional one that it can kill a victim from
inside and make them a different person only. So as a conclusion it can be said that it is
proved that the cyber bullying has a larger social impact than the traditional one due to the
impact it creates among the victims which are escalated up to the mental illness and self-
harming tendency a self-degradation.
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Reference list
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