STOP Cyberbullying: What is cyberbullying, exactly? And The Effects of Cyberbullying.

A transaction between two parties where a larger subject in a steak embroidered jeans or leather jacket solicit money from a smaller weaker subject against his or her will. Or at least that was how it worked in the 1980s when David Hasselhoff and his firebird still ruled the streets. But as the tired old trend of interpersonal interaction rapidly declined in favor of digital communication. It seemed we couldn't drop the nasty trend of being nasty to each other. In fact the proliferation of harassment via information technology networks such as Hate based websites, Email slander campaigns and threatening phone calls had become frequent enough by 2004 that it led to a term to describe the experience of repeated and targeted digital abuse CyberBullying and as it turned out this was just in the nick of time for the next great evolution of bullying.

social networking social media changed the bullying landscape by giving people unprecedented access to the personal lives of everybody. 74% of teenagers according to the pew research center and once the networking services became ubiquitous with cell phones, It meant that bullies could access their victims at any time in place from school to work to even home. In fact approximately one in three teenagers report having experienced some form of cyberbullying, This is also according to Pew including everything from having private messages shared without permission, False rumors spread and even physical threats. So then a common reaction from many who first encounter cyber harassment is to say well okay "I'll just unplug everything this is easy".

However the emotional distress and stigma from bullying can follow a person far beyond their plugged in experience with victims exhibiting higher incident rates of psychological problems, depression and substance abuse issues. According to research by the cyberbullying research center and because cyber bullying disproportionately affects teenagers and this is according to statistics Netherlands there has been concern from organizations such as the US Department of Health and Human Services about the effects of this type of bullying on personal development and the possibility that it could cause emotional and behavioral issues later on in life.

Thankfully, social media providers seem to agree that there's a problem and things like page visibility only upon author approval and blocking for individual users have become near-universal. Some services such as YouTube take it a step further letting users define what type of unwanted material they're reporting from unsolicited too explicit or even violent and harassing speech or there's. Twitch which allows broadcasters to temporarily timeout people instead of banning them outright giving a chance for the perpetrators behavior to be modified via social reinforcement.

Which is not to say at all that these features are foolproof as it is not uncommon for miscreants to gain them by setting up dummy accounts or even abuse them by reporting people who have done nothing wrong and efforts to legislate against cyberbullying haven't gone swimmingly either with reports of online bullying continuing to rise according to the boston-based Education Development Center. On the bright side campaigns like stomp out bullying in the US and delete cyber bullying in the EU have led to a growing awareness and a drive for people to be proactive about this issue. Because it's kind of a serious issue and if you or anyone that you know has experienced anything more than you know the mildly irritating levels of online abuse but we all just seemed to kind of accept to the point where you feel like it's really having an impact on you it's important to reach out to nearby support because no one deserves that kind of mistreatment and last but not least take care not to be agree for yourself.

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