Today’s society relies on a very useful resource that relates people to easily accessible information and to each other; social media. “Social media is any online service through which users can create and share content” (Bolton, Ruth N., A. Parasuraman), I.E Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other websites where people can choose to communicate without ever meeting the other people that they are interacting with. Social media holds a very tight grasp on the hearts and minds of most people in the world today. Whether it be for communication or research, everyone uses it at some time or another. “75% of 7-16 year-olds have used the Internet with young people reporting that they integrate on- and off-line communication in order to sustain their social networks.” (Marilyn A. Campbell) This resource that was initially intended to be useful however has been turned into a weapon, a sword of tongues. Bullying and social media have begun to work together hand in hand, causing extreme problems in the society today. As I look at the effect of social media on bullying through the use of research and documents, I can feel the pain of all kids today that are bullied because I can relate so well to them. I once was bullied in school with the traditional face-to-face style of bullying but I was not at risk of cyber-bullying because my young age. However, after my freshman year of college began, one of my best friends shot and killed himself due to people at his school bullying him through social media as well as to his face. The time is now to make a change because if a person waits too long to try to make a change then people everywhere can be affected.

Arguments about the correlation of social media and bullying can be broken down into many things. Bullying is a huge problem in today’s generation. Social media is a very dominant resource today and it is at any persons’ access through a smart phone, computer, or even a tablet. Introducing social media to the millennial generation and letting them be in control of their own social media pages at an early age without adult supervision is an idea that has many flaws, such as viewing things they are not mature enough to see, and posting offensive and demeaning things about others. The next thing that should be brought to your attention is that when social media and bullying are intertwined, it can become a gruesome combination. The best way to go about social media for children at such a young age is to not do it, the parents need to be in control. A counter argument to that however may be that people want their privacy and when they do not receive it, this can lead them to have aggressive interactions with their families. Some people could argue that it is “wrong” to control your kids. The final argument you could hear about social media and bullying is that if some people are watching over their post then you violate their human rights. Regulating things that people say and do interferes with the constitutional freedom of speech. The order in which these topics come to frame are, social media and its dominant hold on society, bullying generalities, the correlation between social media and bullying, parents being in control, and then concluding with the counter arguments of how parental control may violate the rights of the youths’ social-media account-holders 

Social media is the way that the generation of today communicates. From Facebook to Twitter, children, teens and their families all post their views and ideas within a 140-character post. When you were younger did you ever hear the phrase “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will NEVER hurt me!”? Today many peoples’ posts on social media are controversial to this quote because people tend blatantly disrespect others with their words because they do not have to put those words out to someone’s face and can instead hide out behind a phone or computer screen. As other individuals receive a tweet or see it on their timeline from another individual, they can be hurt and feel targeted on the internet by words. That’s right, now-a-days words do hurt others and can even KILL certain individuals. “Everyday users on the Internet as well as clinicians and researchers have noted how people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn’t ordinarily say and do in the face-to-face world. They loosen up, feel less restrained, and ex- press themselves more openly. So pervasive is the phenomenon that a term has surfaced for it: the on- line disinhibition effect. This disinhibition can work in two seemingly op- posing directions. Sometimes people share very personal things about themselves. They reveal secret emotions, fears, wishes. They show unusual acts of kindness and generosity, sometimes going out of their way to help others.” (Suler, John). As people share specific things online, including insults and mocking comments, they have no fears in doing so because they are sitting behind a screen and their victims cannot defend themselves because this would require the victim to be on the specific website their attacker is on at the same time and see what is being said about them at that time which, more often than not, is not the case. Being a person who bullies others online allows them to separate themselves from the rest of the world in that they can stay behind a screen and hurt others without actually interacting with their victims as opposed to the traditional style of bullying someone face to face and having to experience their victim’s reactions and hurt. In some ways, social media has both made bullying more prevalent as well as less remorseful.

The lifestyle of the bully-victim relationship is not limited to just elementary school, middle school, or high school, but it can continue on the job as well, “While not an explicit feature of bullying, researchers in the bullying domain that bullying generally occurs when there is a power imbalance between the perpetrator and the target. In particular, the perpetrator is thought to have greater power than the target; however, power is defined broadly to include anything from formal or social position, to age, job tenure, or gender.” (Hershcovis, M. S.) The act of bullying continues throughout life in many different shapes and fashions and continues to disrupt the concept of euphoria in the world. “Bullying, especially in the form of hazing rituals, can be a serious problem at fraternities on college campuses…Across the country, many fraternity men will say that hazing and bullying are traditions and normal protocols that come with wanting to be a brother…males in fraternities can be asked to do dangerous activities such as chug excess amounts of water or alcohol, which can actually result in death if care is not taken.”( Berlatsky, Noah) If one was to get on the internet, one could see how it has changed over time and how it affects the millennial generation. The internet, as well as songs from various artists in music and actors on television, portrays a “fun” life by living in the world of drinking, sleeping around, and putting other people down. The younger generation now are very much more open to saying things on social media because they see it from some of their favorite stars and all they get is to be publicized for it. The time is now to start worrying about the youth and to start explaining to them that this portrayed way of life is wrong and can ruin their futures.

Bullying in general is an unacceptable action, but when you add the fuel to it, such as combining it with social media, you then have even worse combination. Whereas traditional-style bullying was only restricted to the hours that the students were in the classroom or with each other out of school, cyber-bullying is attainable at all hours of the day and night because the mobile devices that people have with the capabilities of accessing social media and posting videos and pictures during class, at home, and even during the where there is not even wifi to access. “A software app like Secret for the iPhone, then, can potentially facilitate and encourage cyberbullying…Molloy explains that the app allows users to post messages anonymously. Cofounder David Byttow compared the app to a "masquerade ball" where, he says, "You know who's on the guest list, but you don't know who is saying what." Byttow says people will hear each other's "internal dialogues" and gain a sense of "belonging or validation."” (Berlatsky, Noah) Apps like these are easily accessible for anyone to get to, simply download it onto a smartphone and use it anonymously or even put a name with it is someone desired to do so. There are many apps just like the app mentioned above, Secret, where you can message users and have conversations with them and post comments anonymously. “Two studies captured the findings of cyber bullying and traditional bullying and Both studies found cyberbullying less frequent than traditional bullying, but appreciable, and reported more outside of school than inside. Phone call and text message bullying were most prevalent, with instant messaging bullying in the second study; their impact was perceived as comparable to traditional bullying. Mobile phone/video clip bullying, while rarer, was perceived to have more negative impact. Age and gender differences varied between the two studies. Study one found that most cyberbullying was done by one or a few students, usually from the same year group. It often just lasted about a week, but sometimes much longer. The second study found that being a cyber-victim, but not a cyber-bully, correlated with internet use; many cyber-victims were traditional ‘bully-victims’. Pupils recommended blocking/avoiding messages, and telling someone, as the best coping strategies; but many cyber-victims had told nobody about it.” (Smith, Peter K.,) As you see the two studies concluded that there was more of the traditional bullying than the social media style, but the cyber bullying also correlated with the usage of social media. 

 Parents controlling social media pages is a great idea. I personally have this opinion, as I once was a child of the younger generation who was bullied. Not being allowed to get on social media at a young age, helped me because I personally was not involved in the drama that correlated with the “benefits” of having a social media page. This helped in shielding me from the directness of cyber-bullying going on at the time because the likelihood of me getting picked on during that time was very low since people, including me, were not completely immersed in the social media aspect. At that time, for me, face to face bullying was the most prominent but I was at least only around it during the times that I was in school. However, a few years later I became more involved with social media and it got noticeably harder to deal with people as they would not only bring the face-to-face events up, but would also create more occasions of bullying on the social media platform. In my research, I found a survey of about 1500 students who were asked about bullying and how it was affecting them. “The survey found: 57% of students said that someone had said hurtful or angry things to them online with 13% saying it happens “quite often”, 53% of students admit saying mean or hurtful things to someone online and 7% admit to doing it “quite often”, 35% of students have been threatened online with 5% saying it happens “quite often”, 42% have been bullied online with 7% saying it happens “quite often”, 20% have received mean or threatening e-mails, 58% have not told their parents or another adult about their experiences online.” (Martin, Susan Keith Michelle E) Those are extremely high numbers, especially considering that this was only a 1500-person survey. There were also other studies of adolescent teens in which they said if they were bullied by traditional style bullying or cyberbullying. “This study examined the relationships between cyber and traditional bullying experiences regarding gender differences. Also, the contributions of frequent and risky usage of internet to cyberbullying experiences were examined. The participants were 276 adolescents (123 females, 151 males and 2 unknown) ranging in age from 14 to 18 years. The results revealed that 32 percent of the students were victims of both cyber and traditional bullying, while 26 percent of the students bullied others in both cyber and physical environments. Compared to female students, male students were more likely to be bullies and victims in both physical and cyber-environments. The multivariate statistical analysis indicated that cyber and traditional bullying were related for male students but not for female students. Moreover, the multiple regression analysis revealed that both frequent and risky usage of internet account for a significant variance of cyberbullying but their contributions differ based on genders.” (Erdur-Baker, Özgür) These numbers are proof that bullying is everywhere and it is a very hard thing to avoid or to put an end to.

Over time, the availability of the internet and technology to youth has become increasingly greater, and has even begun to be created to better suit the “younger” generation. Although this has many advantages, a consequence of this is that youth are able to see and post more content that they should not be able to access; things of vulgar and un-proper maturity level. As one can tell “Young people are very sophisticated users of technology and often lead the way in adapting new technologies to everyday use. Their technological savvy, combined with the ability to be online without much adult supervision, can lead to behaviors that are high risk. Such high risk behaviors include exposure to violence, and cyber bullying (i.e., using the Internet to harass and bully others). In a study involving 3767 students in grades 6–8, Kowalski and Limber found that although 78% of the students surveyed had no experience with cyber bullying, 11% were victims of cyber bullying, 7% were bully/victims, and 4% were bullies.” ("Current Research on Cyber Bullying.") These high percentages are very scary and need to be drastically lowered if not completely diminished from the bullying/social media world. As students continue to realize that their technological savviness of being under the radar from the average, the trend will exponentially continue to grow towards cyber-bullying instead of traditional bullying, because it is at much less of a risk due to the lack of face to face confrontation. The bad wrap of social media comes with all of the people who abuse the system such as posting rude comments and photos about others. Teens and adolescents have become similar to professional hackers, in the way that they know how to say and do things without anyone knowing and without getting punished.

Another big reason bullying sustains itself is the fact that children are somewhat scared that if they become a “snitch” then the bully will then target them, which in most cases is probably right but not always the case. “In fact, some research has indicated that more than 80% of the time an observer witnesses victimization ... Despite the presence of witnesses and bystanders, nearly 1 in 3 children report victimization by a bully in the past 2 months. Consequentially, bullying occurs with an audience of members who play multiple roles and often fail to intervene on behalf of the victim with regularity. These bullying incidents have lasting negative effects on the bully, victim, and bystanders” (Polanin, Joshua R.). This source confirms that it effects all parties of the incident, but the next source which is a chart shows how and what bullies do. 

This chart represents percentages of students aged 12-18 who reported bullying at school in 2013. This chart breaks down the percentages of various types of bullying like bullied at school, made fun of/insulted, subject of rumors, pushed or shoved or spit on, excluded from activities, threatened with harm, peer pressured to do things against will, and their property being destroyed. As you can see from the chart females are bullied more at school vs. the male students. Another thing you notice is that the guys tend to do more physical abuse compared to the girls as they seem to be more verbal. “It is well recognized that there are serious correlates for victims of traditional bullying. These have been shown to include increased levels of depression, anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms, in addition to often severe physical harm and even suicide. Bullied students also feel more socially ineffective and have greater interpersonal difficulties, together with higher absenteeism from school and lower academic competence. In the emerging field of cyberbullying many researchers have hypothesized a greater impact and more severe consequences for victims because of the 24/7 nature and the possibility of the wider audience with this form of bullying.” (Campbell) As people are beginning to be attacked by both cyber-bullying and by traditional bullying, they can find themselves making decisions that can make their lives harder and seemingly less important. “In 2012, Amanda Todd became the face of bullying. Todd, a fifteen-year-old from Vancouver, Canada, committed suicide in October of that year after being bullied at multiple schools and struggling with depression. A video she made a month before, in which she used flashcards to describe the abuse and harassment she had endured, went viral after her death, receiving millions of views. Her story was covered in major news outlets and sparked a growing debate about bullying and online harassment.” (Berlatsky, Noah)

As people are held accountable for having responsibilities, such as the privilege of being able to have social media, they can become rebellious over time because they seem to feel as if they are being “sheltered.” The person may feel as if they have little to no privacy without realizing that it is for the better and that their parents are protecting them. Being rebellious goes along with privacy, such that a person of higher authority tells an individual what to do and then they talk back or refuse to do the action demanded by the higher power. It is impossible to keep people from saying things online or doing things they shouldn’t be doing unless you somehow “violate their rights”. People may argue that it violates their rights to be watched over because today people feel entitled to their privacy rather than privileged with that right. Individuals are now considering bullying as just a “mistreatment” and not an actual form of anything else. This is from a study that two researchers did that examined a bunch of different types of behaviors. It almost seems as if the world doesn’t really see bullying as a problem because it isn’t effecting enough people. 

Social media and bullying lay hand in hand together and have become a problem over time. As time passes this may become a more and more prominent thing in society and become a huge problem. Children of the digital generation have made a way for themselves to be able to be able to access these social sites at all hours of the day and create havoc for other people of the world. The time is now to stop this. Stopping this now can save hundreds of lives in the future and current day. So always remember when you are saying something to someone online that your words can affect them, it can also kill them.  As you witness another post about a fellow student or a person you don’t know, stand up for them, they may not have the courage to do so themselves and it can deter the bully from messing with them again.
