Social Media Addiction and Cyberbullying: An EAL Essay for High School

This essay explores the pervasive issue of social media addiction and its correlation with cyberbullying among high school students. It highlights how the increased accessibility of smartphones and social media platforms, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to heightened risks of online harassment. The essay delves into the various forms of cyberbullying, including online harassment, abusive messaging, and image manipulation, and their detrimental effects on the mental and emotional well-being of young individuals, often leading to depression, anxiety, and even suicidal tendencies. It also addresses the gender dynamics involved, noting the increased likelihood of males engaging in cyberbullying while females are more often the victims. Furthermore, the essay suggests several preventive measures such as adjusting privacy settings, avoiding suspicious contacts, and reporting incidents of harassment. Desklib offers a platform for students to access this essay along with a variety of study tools and resources.

Essay
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Table of Contents
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5
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MAIN BODY
Social media addiction and cyber bullying
Before discussing about impacts of social media, it is important to understand this term and
in this context, it can be said that it is a computer based technology that facilitates sharing of
thoughts, ideas and information via building virtual networks as well as communities. It is an
effective platform that has allowed people to interact with each others. There are number of
advantages of using social media platform but nowadays, people are using this to the great extent
and it is having number of negative impacts on children, people and businesses as well. Some
common problems that are associated with this include: cyber bullying and negative physical as
well as emotional impacts on people (Craig and et.al., 2020).
Cyber bullying is a growing problem that is associated with social media use and social
media addiction and it has now become a significant public health concern that lead to mental
and behavioural health issues. It is all about a form of harassment and bullying by using
electronic means. It happens when someone harass others on the internet. Children, adults and
young women are becoming victims of harassment and cyber bullying and it is having negative
mental and emotional impacts on them. It has been found from secondary data that due to cyber
bullying has become the reasons of suicidal cases in adults and young people. Nowadays, around
80% of teens have their own smart phones. After covid-19, it has become compulsory for parents
to give their children Smartphone or laptops for studying virtually but children and teens make
undue advantages of this. They have become addicted to social media. On social media platform,
they meet with new people and make friends. They communicate with them on regular basis and
they believe on them blindly (Qudah and et.al., 2019). People on other side take undue
advantages and ask about their personal and other information. Children and teens provide
detailed information to their online friends and they become victims of harassment and bullying.
People on other side bully their fake online friends and get any work done from them by
harassing them.
There are number of applications on which teens have become an active users such as:
Instagram, facebook, Snapchat, Tiktok, Whatsapp, GroupMe and others. Too many apps allow
teenagers and adults to post anything anonymously and reveal the location of users. It makes
them susceptible to various forms of harassment by cyber bullies. It has been found from the
university of George study that as compared to females, males are more likely to engage in cyber
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bullying and it leads aggressive behaviour. Females on the other hand are identified in separate
studies as the most common and prevalent victims of cyberbullying. Females are being attacked
for their physical appearance their ways of clothing themselves, their family, lifestyle and values.
People have become social media addictive to the great extent and they cannot imagine their
lives without social media and smart phones. They crave it when they are not on it and continue
their social media accounts and it leads number of other problems along with harassment such
as: poor grades, feeling tired and sleepy during the day and conflicts with family members
(Fabito and et.al., 2018). When teenagers give importance to their online friends more than their
family and real friends then it leads conflicts and it makes them stressed.
When teenagers upload everything about themselves such as location, their other personal
information then cyber bullies make undue advantages of these information then they send
abusive and threatening messages and videos via messaging platforms. They edit images or
pictures of teenagers and harass them that they will upload their image or will share their images
on social media platforms. Teenagers and young females become victims of cyber bullying and
they do everything, told by cyber bullies. It has been seen in many cases that at the end,
teenagers and young people become bind to commit suicide and harassment on social media has
become one of the main hot reason of suicide (Field, 2018). It leads depression, lower self-
esteem, social phobia and social anxiety. Victims of cyber bullying are less likely to trust on
people and they do not engage in social activities. It leads loneliness and they make themselves
isolated and it has negative impact on mentally and emotionally as well. There are number of
ways by which people can protect themselves from getting affected from harassment such as: un-
friend suspected people, changing privacy setting, keeping personal information private and
reporting harassment where it happens (Oksanen and et.al., 2020).
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Craig, W. and et.al., 2020. Social media use and cyber-bullying: A cross-national analysis of
young people in 42 countries. Journal of Adolescent Health, 66(6), pp.S100-S108.
Fabito, B.S. and et.al., 2018, October. Exploring mobile game addiction, cyberbullying, and its
effects on academic performance among tertiary students in one university in the
Philippines. In TENCON 2018-2018 IEEE region 10 conference (pp. 1859-1864). IEEE.
Field, T., 2018. Cyberbullying: A narrative review. Journal of addiction therapy and
research, 2(1), pp.10-27.
Oksanen, A. and et.al., 2020. Cyberbullying victimization at work: Social media identity bubble
approach. Computers in human behavior, 109, p.106363.
Qudah, M.F.A. and et.al., 2019. Smartphone addiction and its relationship with cyberbullying
among university students. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 17(3),
pp.628-643.
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