Negative Impacts Of Cyberbullying

1. Introduction

In the information age, bullying is not only limited to attacking the victims in person but has expanded to the cyberspace. Cyberbullying has grown with the increasing prevalence of the use of the internet (Smith et al., 2008). Previous research has revealed that 87 percent of interviewees having witnessed others being cyberbullied and over 30 percent of them affirm that they have been cyberbullied (Cyberbullying Research Centre, 2016).

Cyberbullying is found to cause enormous harm to teenagers. In the meantime, this situation has proved that interventions on controlling these tragedies from happening is inadequate. In this paper, the impacts of cyberbullying on victims which can be categorise into personal well-being and psychological

Negative impacts of cyberbullying

Cyberbullying has found to cause enormous harm to youth, which can be ascribed into impacts on personal well-being and psychological health.

3.1 Social well-being

There are deep-rooted effects for bullies on their social well-being. In some cases, these impacts carry on when they enter the stage of early adulthood (Patchin et al., 2006; Kulig et al., 2008). A research done by Patchin and Hinduja (2006), reveals youth who were involved in cyberbullying, regardless of his/her role, had notably lowered self-esteem than children who had never or little experience of cyberbullying. Therefore, they display higher levels of antisocial, violent and/or criminal behaviour. The implications of cyberbullying depend on the severity of bullying they have experienced (Brighi, 2012). The more frequent and severe they were bullied, the higher possibility of being unsociable, violence and committing crimes. For instance, victims were at the centre of attention when they were publically humiliated, they felt embarrassed and shameful, ultimately, they alienated themselves from the society (Sonja, 2011; Slonje & Smith,

Individuals can select a range of coping mechanisms when they endure cyberbullying. Victims can block bullies from contacting them through various means (Campbell 2005). Sufferers can change their identification on networking sites such as switching passwords, online identity, e-mail addresses and deleting anonymous text messages to terminate potential bullying from happening (Juvonen & Gross 2008). If perpetrator continue to annoy the innocent, the one who is affected can take further actions to prevent themselves from reading hurtful messages or the rumours spreading online. Seek help from a friend, inform parents, teachers or the more experienced can be alternatives (Cassidy et al., 2009). A study which investigates the coping strategies of youth cyberbullying points out the most frequently used method is talk to someone about the event. The mean stated accounts for 67 percent among all other measures (Smith et al., 2004). Nonetheless, a massive portion of interviewee refused to tell teachers, or family members about their tragic experience (Hunter & Boyle, 2004). Informing teachers can be a powerful approach, if only teaching staff find a suitable way to deal with the complication. At last, it mostly depends on what way does the victim choose to confront the