Wednesday, 26 March 2014

Essay Draft #3

 
The Rise of Cyberbullying on Social Media
In his TED talk, Goldin (2009) mentions a few negative and positive issues that the world is facing due to rapid globalisation. Social media has brought about new levels of global interconnectedness which often result in the rise of a new global consciousness. However, social media has led to several negative issues such as amplifying the incidence of cyberbullying. High usage of social media by teens has allowed cyberbullying to thrive over the recent years, which attracted more and more critical attention towards the role of social media bringing negative effects on the victims. According to Donegan (2012), in the past, bullying could be better controlled because they were limited to face-to-face interactions. However, in recent years, this age-old conflict has matched the pace of technological evolutions, making it more dangerous and harder to contain. Under these circumstances, several schools and parents have been adopting filtering or blocking software to control children from accessing social networking sites. However, utilizing the software is not effective enough to solve the cyberbullying problem. Instead, an educational approach will be a better alternative to solve the cyberbullying problem in the long run.
Pew Research Centre (2010) has done an extensive national study and shows that of teens who use social media, 88% report that they have witnessed someone being mean or cruel to another online, with 12% saying cyberbullying is a 'frequent' occurrence. Social media has provided more avenues for abusers to conduct cyberbullying. For instance, Facebook and Twitter has significantly allowed incidence of cyberbullying to thrive that negatively impact victims in the various aspects of their lives. While the "share" function in Facebook and Twitter allows abusers to share negative comments to the public, it is possible that many abusers can gather together and attack on a single victim through an interface. This form of bullying is commonly known as mass cyberbullying. In addition, social media allows users to act on their free will, insulting and harassing others online without bearing any consequences. Thus, due to anonymous bullying, victimization can be continuous and inescapable.
Many schools and parents have been utilizing the blocking software so as to prevent teens from accessing social networking sites. However, several researchers and administrators argue that the software may not be as effective as people thought. Microsoft, as cited by Wong (2006) warns parents that although filtering and monitoring tools are helpful, they can be disabled by a savvy computer user. In addition, Jesdanun (2003) also demonstrated how easy it was to defeat various filtering and blocking software. Although the software can be effective to younger and less IT savvy children, it may fail to achieve the same effective result for older and IT savvy teenagers. When teens are determined to circumvent the blocking software, they will find all means to defeat them in order to access the social networking sites. This often leaves parents with a false sense of security as teens may have already deactivated the software without being noticed.
The current model of mitigating cyberbullying by blocking access to social networking sites only controls the actions of students when they are at school or at home. This control model does not prepare students when faced with a potentially dangerous environment for when they leave the safety net provided to them. It is impossible for a student to know how to navigate through without danger when the protection is no longer around.
Thus, it is important to conceive that cyberbullying education is needed to provide students with the relevant skills when encountering any incident of cyberbullying. One such skill is the ability to filter and evaluate information found in social networking sites. This can be achieved through workshops and classroom discussions conducted by the educators during class time. Students will go through a process of reflecting, evaluating and making their own decisions regarding the sources they authenticate and information they choose to share about themselves to others. Another such skill is the ability to withstand critique by others. This can also be achieved through role playing scenarios practiced in the classroom. Students will learn how to recognize, react and control their emotions when dealing with negative comments from people on social media. All in all, with this cyberbullying education approach, students can still interact with different people through social media if they are acquiring skills that they feel are relevant to protect themselves.
In conclusion, the increasing usage of social media among teens has raise the need for eliminating cyberbullying. I believe that the existing solution to combat cyberbullying by solely relying on the blocking software is not effective. It will be better to manage them through cyberbullying education approach rather than just block them completely. Although it often feel that the problem of cyberbullying will never go away, the alternative of not solving the problem is not a viable option either.


Words: 806

 
References

Centre, P. R. (2010). Cyberbullying statistics. Retrieved from Pew Research Centre: http://www.pewresearch.org/

Donegan, R. (2012). Bullying and Cyberbullying: History, Statistics, Law, Prevention and Analysis. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, 33.

Enough Is Enough. (2006). Youth and general internet use. Retrieved from Enough Is Enough: www.enough.org/inside.php?tag=statistics#7

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Pennsylvania. (2006, August 17). 1 of 3 teens &1 of 6 preteens are victims of cyber bullying. [News release]. Retrieved from Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Pennsylvania: www.fightcrime.org/releases.php?id=234

Goldin, I. (2009). Navigating our global future [Motion Picture].

Gottesman, B. (2006) A hardware solution in the software-dominated world of parental control. Retrieved from PC Magazine: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1948981,00.asp?

Microsoft (2004) Are your kids addicted to the Internet? Retrieved from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/kidwebaddict.mspx

Riccardi, K. (2013). Cyber Bullying: Responsibilities and Solutions. Retrieved from Digital Learning Environment: http://www.guide2digitallearning.com/teaching_learning/cyber_bullying_responsibilities_and_solutions

Robey, T. F. (2008). Cyberbullying. Retrieved from National Association of Secondary School Principals: http://www.principals.org/tabid/3788/default.aspx?topic=58057

Sheppard, M. (2012). Cyberbullying Resource Centre. Retrieved from EdgeWave: http://cyberbullying.edgewave.com/

Wong, K. (2006). How Tech Savvy Teens Defeat Parental Control Software. Retrieved from Parent Support: http://www.pcmoderator.com/pcmoderator_021.htm

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