Cyberbullying vs. Traditional Bullying

Bullying has been a problem since way before technology. From teasing to fighting, physical forms of bullying have consistently been a part of childhood in our society. More recently bullying has taken a new form through the use of technology.

Cyberbullying is a new phenomenon that encompasses all types of bullying with the use of technology. Cell phones, instant message, and social media are all ways that people today can harass each other.

The question becomes, is this version of cyberbullying worse than traditional bullying of the past? There can be very different effects. For example, bullying in person requires some sort reaction from the victim, where cyberbullying does not necessarily require a reaction. Traditional bullying is also connected with physical violence towards the victim.

Cyber bullying is not a physical attack, but a psychological one.  Aspects of cyberbullying make it much more dangerous than traditional bully. First off, it actually is more common than traditional bullying. In the case of traditional bullying the bully would need to act face-to-face with the victim. This means that the bully would see the reaction and also face immediate repercussions. Cyberbullying allows for the bully to be anonymous. Any person can bully another without fear of getting into trouble also, it allows for people that would not bully in person, to bully online.

There is a limited amount of people that really enjoy watching a person get upset. Traditional bullying is limited to those people who really want to see a victim struggle. When the barrier of a computer is set up, many other people can get that thrill and feeling of power without seeing the consequences of what they are really doing to a person. When people write mean comments online, it is more like a game to the writer, but what is easily forgotten are the people being affected by those comments.

This happens especially when the victim is not even known.  For example recently a picture was taken from a make-up artist. It was a side by side picture of a girl before and after her make-up was done.  The picture of the girl, whose name is Ashley VanPevanage, was copied and captioned repeatedly with rude remarks about her natural face and the large difference with make-up on. Her picture was shared on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. VanPeveanage was devastated by these remarks and by the magnitude of people repeating them. Each of these people acted as a bully towards her, but it was fed by the group mentality that she was not a real person with feelings. They dehumanized her for a couple of mean jokes. Since then she has spoken out about her struggle associated with this bullying.

The other large and intimidating factor of cyberbullying is the fact that it is 24/7. There is no escape from the internet in our world today. Everyone has a laptop, a web-enabled phone, or tablet that they look at many times a day. With traditional bullying, the victim is a risk at school or in specific places, but they can find safe spaces to be. That is not the same for cyberbullying, there is no way to hide from the constant threat that someone will post a cruel comment or message. This difference has a serious impact on how bullying effects people. When there is no way to hide from an attack is very easy to feel helpless, alone, and overwhelmed. People have told many tragic stories of the fatal effects of cyberbullying because of this reason.

Clearly, cyberbullying has a stronger effect than traditional bullying. Without a chance to escape and with so many more individuals wiling to act as a bully, the growing pool of victims has serious psychological repercussions. The internet has allowed people to dehumanize victims to increase the cruel actions towards them, and without a clear way of escaping, victims feel trapped like they never had before.