The Psychological Effects of Cyber-bullying

1.1. Background of the Research

The evolution of the Internet is one of the tremendous innovations of all time. It has grown from simple dial-up to information being passed from one person to another at a lighting speed worldwide. In this modern society, there are several advantages in online connectivity like relaying constructive information for school projects, online gaming, and enhancing social communications. However, the increased use of the internet has also brought along with it an increase in cyber-attacks, harassments or even being threatened by their peers. The anonymous feeling builds a safe barrier between the victimizer and the victim making it morally easier to bully someone. Cyber-attacks include but are not limited to a man in the middle (MITM), denial of service (DoS) attacks, malware, password attacks, phishing, and cyberbullying. Cyberbullying has been the most prevailing one as it has become an attack that starts with peer pressure and eventually leads to severe consequences like isolation, suicide, mental incapacity, behavioral issues, etc. Cyberbullying and traditional bullying vary in that one is technologically advanced while the other is done mostly face to face but they are both known to cause severe harm to a person’s quality of life and self-esteem.

1.2. Research Rationale 

This research aims to analyze the psychological effects of cyberbullying and the different factors that influence individuals into becoming cyberbullies. The study is done for both academic and realistic purposes. The academic aspect of the study comes from the fact that most researchers in regard to cyberbullying focus on the victims, the effects and causes of cyberbullying and there are lack of the studies regarding the perpetrator, why they bully and the long-term effects of bullying. The outcome would be for the study to fill this academic indentation. In regard to the realistic perception, strategies to stop cyberbullying fail due to the continuous enhancement of technology and individuals always find new and innovative ways to bully people online. This paper will try to demonstrate the prevalence of bullying in relation to the internet and the psychological effects on both the perpetrator and the victim. Hence, this research will be able to contribute to the fight against cyberbullying. 

1.3. Research Aims and Objectives

The major purpose of this paper is to create and analyze the correlation amid cyberbullying and long-term psychological effects. To do this we should consider the prevalence of Cyberbullying, forms of cyberbullying, types of perpetrators and victims, and the psychological effects of cyberbullying. With this in mind, the study recommends the subsequent objective:

To examine the prevalence of cyberbullying

To investigate the forms of cyberbullying

To analyze the types of perpetrators and victims

To study the psychological effects of cyberbullying

1.4 Research question

Does lack of physical intimidation affect individual’s predisposition to cyber bully?

Literature Review

Prevalence of Cyber Bullying

Cyberbullying cases have been on the rise for years now and this has led to a number of students and adults unable to cope with it. Most of them have been left isolated, lonely and depressed. Research shows that 24.3% of students in four Canadian Universities have been victims of cyberbullying in the last 12 months. According to Faucher, Jackson, and Cassidy (2014), this is interpreted as in every four students at least one of them is a victim of cyber buying. Moreover, as the perpetrator grows older so does his or her need to bully increases. Statistics show that from 1,458 students, the number of students aged 13-16 years was less in comparison to those above the age of 16 (Wegge, Vandebosch and Eggermont, 2014).

Forms of Cyber Bullying

Due to the enhancement of technology people have come up with several forms of bullying their peers. Nonetheless, the use of social media has been the commonly used one. The use of text messaging and email is another form of cyberbullying with 25% of bullying happening in the chat rooms and blog forums (Arntfield, 2015). These forms are effective as they offer anonymity to the offender. Another reason why social media is the hotbed for cyberbullying is that is worldwide and most comments, videos, and pictures cannot be entirely erased from the sites. Other studies also show how the internet and mobile phones play a role in cyberbullying. Abeele and Cook (2013) postulate that the most common form is gossiping via text messages, this is particularly had to control as the victim rarely knows about it until the damage is done. Threatening phone calls and text messages is also on the rise. This creates insecurities, fear, and anxiety as the victims rarely know who is going to harm them. 

Types of People Perpetrators and Victims

In terms of gender, the male is more likely to become bullies in comparison to women nonetheless 36.2 % of the people were not aware the sex of their bully (Wegge, Vandebosch, and Eggermont, 2014) researchers have tried to expound on the category of people who are prone to bullies. An investigation done by Abeele and Cook indicate that the gender of sufferers varies depending on the type of cyber attack. It also concludes that men are more susceptible to undeviating cyberbullying like aggravation while women are more vulnerable to oblique bullying such as online scandal (Abeele and Cock, 2013). There have been little to no study done on gender bullying but relatively on the characters of an individual. A number of citizens that are subjected to cyberbullying suppose that this is because of their individual form and the issues they are facing. Certain cases of cyberbullying have been because of the sexual orientation of an individual and some have to lie about their gender in Social Medias like Facebook to avoid being bullied online (Davis et al., 2015). 

Effects of Cyber Bullying

Cyberbullying comes in various forms, but the results of their unfavorable effects are common. It leads to long-term impacts on the victims and distress that are similar to all other victims worldwide. Research done on the university students reveal that the victimized pupils could not effectively perform well in school. Cyberbullying affected their mental thoughts, and in numerous cases, they are incapable to carry on with their education. According to scholars, over 30000 students do not attend school because they feared being bullied (Faucher, Jackson & Cassidy, 2014). Cyberbullying is also a leading cause of suicides. Studies reveal that between 7% - 9% of victims of cyberbullying consider suicide.

Methodology and Research Methods

Introduction 

The major reason for this study is to investigate the psychological effects of cyberbullying and the different factors that influence individuals into becoming cyberbullies. For this to be accomplished, various methodologies have to be espoused. This sector hence discusses the research philosophy and the method that will delineate the study and the research strategy. In addition, the instrument of choice that will be used will be discussed in details, and the process of collecting data and the methods of analysis used. Lastly, this section will conclude with recognizing the limitations of using the methodologies and give further details about the ethical consideration addressed during the research. 

Research Philosophy

Research philosophy is the development of the background and knowledge of the research and the description of the nature of the research. Research philosophy also gives scholars the foundation of identifying and comprehending the various points of view on the conscientious topic of concern.

Some of the philosophies widely used include 

interpretivism

positivism and 

Realism (Saunders et al., 2009). 

Pickard (2007) supposed that positivism philosophy is done under the notion that when analyzing the behavior of human beings, the investigation should be done in the same way as that of natural science. This means that positivism works under precise laws and systems that are authenticated by scientific measures and are able to estimate, assess and/or recognize certain occurrence and give a justification for them. The interpretive approach, on the other hand, is the use of individual observation and position as well as behaviors and know-how to stir the development of knowledge (Cooper et al., 2006). Realism philosophy is generally based on the interdependency of human ideas, principles and chiefly emphasizes on the existence of these ideas in the environmental facet so that it only investigates non-existing features. 

Interpretive approach is the best philosophy for this study because it stresses on the involvement of people towards values and ideologies when providing rationalization to a research occurrence ( Saunders et al., 2009 ). In context of this study, it will consider the diversity of cyberbullying and then formulate a complete cognition of the psychological effects of cyberbullying. 

Research approach

When performing a study one can either use inductive or deductive approaches. The deductive approach depends on theories from secondary data sources. Hence, deductive approaches include the identification of patterns that occur by observations subsequently by the use of hypothesis, the theories are explicated (Gulati, 2009). Inductive approach as explained by Bryman and Bell (2007) is the reverse of deductive approach in that; inductive approach begins with a comprehensible assessment of the world that then points out to nonfigurative thoughts. This research will apply inductive approach since it coincides with the study’s interpretivism philosophy. Moreover, the aim of the study is not to evidence previous theories but to an in-depth analysis of the psychological effect of cyberbullying by data collection.

Research strategy

Case study, experiments, survey, action research, grounded theory, archival research, and ethnography are the most applied strategies (Saunders et al., 2009). In the sociological research investigations, case study and survey are most frequently sorted after. The case study method works best for this paper because it is cheap and fast (Newman and Benz, 2006). Furthermore, a benefit of using a case study in this paper is that it echoes the real view of fact and therefore is more effectual in guiding practice. On the contrary, applying the case study has its drawbacks i.e. the results are not generalized meaning that the results of a given group of people do not automatically reciprocate to the conclusion of another (Kumar and Phrommathed, 2005). 

Instrument choices

Research instruments for this study are interviews with semi-structured questions. This is due to the fact that both the researcher and interviewee time and freedom to ask and respond to most questions asked, and make certain that the questions and responses are allied with the research objectives (Collis and Hussey, 2009). Furthermore, the canvasser will gather discernible or visual features such body language to aid align the validity of the collected data.

Data collection and analysis

As discussed above, the gathering of data will be conducted through semi-structured interviews that will be done through phone calls. The researcher will then clarify the purpose of the study and also get their permission to conduct the interview. While doing the interviews, the researcher will put in writing all the answers to make certain that there is proof for data analysis. The study will utilize content analysis since it will allow the pollster to deduce constructive connotation from the responses, text messages and phrases made by the interviewee (Collis & Hussey, 2009). The researcher in this study will rely on coded questions that are to guarantee that the response is in line with the objectives of the study. Moreover, to conclude the results, the study will then summarize the reactions into groups. This will enable lessen the number of various answers hence make comparisons easily. For instance, make the questions very different or so similar to be able to group them. Next, is to employ a relative analysis. This is the comparing the previous studies with the conclusions made by the interviewee (Saunders et al., 2009). 

Discussion

The aim of the study is to analyze the psychological effects of cyberbullying and the different factors that influence individuals into becoming cyberbullies. This section will discuss the limitations of the research as well as the ethical consideration that is to be implemented throughout it.

Limitations

The sample size of the interviewees is a hindrance since dependability of the data used may be subject to biases. Besides, the use of semi-structured queries may result in prejudiced results because the interviewee may limit the profundity of their answers. 

Ethical Considerations

This is the moral obligation that the researcher requires to monitor when doing the research (Collis and Hussey, 2009). For this case, the researcher will have to get permission from the targeted interviewees, after fully notifying them of their human rights when volunteering in the research. This will enable them to take part in the study willingly. To guarantee discretion, the researcher will make certain that the name of the respondents is unidentified all through the research. In addition, the data collected from the respondents will be used only for academic purposes.

References

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Arntfield, M. (2015). Toward a Cybervictimology: Cyberbullying, Routine Activities Theory,

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Davis, K., Randall, D. P., Ambrose, A., & Orand, M. (2015). ‘I was bullied too’: stories of

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