Cyberlife

Almost everyone has been exposed to a form of bullying in the past, whether you took the action to bully someone, be bullied or have seen someone else being bullied. In today’s world the form of bullying has moved into the 21st century and become more of a problem.

Many younger children are now using the internet and bullying other people such as classmates and seeing this as just “harmless fun”. Action needs to be taken because many people are unaware of the consequences these actions actually have against the victim.

Statistics have shown that every 1 in 5 people aged 8-15 admit to being a cyber bully and not seeing anything wrong with their actions. This case study was provided by the identity experts Garlik who have been doing thorough research on the cyber bullying issues in today’s world.

The issues are not just with the online bullies, one third of the bullies parents believe that it’s also just harmless fun and nothing to worry about. This is mainly due to the fact of the children not fully being aware of the result of their actions so more than likely their parents don’t understand what consequences could occur in the worse case scenarios.

Other research has shown that 1 in 7 people are being bullied over the internet with the use of instant messaging software and social network sites allowing people to communicate with people all over the world. It’s even getting to the point that a small percentage has claimed their identity has been stolen and used maliciously against other people.

While this bullying is going on around us, 64% of the victims don’t even tell anyone about it and just have to deal with it on a daily basis which leads to the bullying coming out into the open in the playground or parks.

Actions have to be taken to reduce the amount of cyber bullying because this “harmless fun” always gets escalated out of control. Parents need to take action in what their children are doing on the internet, especially younger people because they may be getting bullied themselves or causing someone else unnecessary abuse. There is no escape from bullying over the internet as there is always a method to post comments and send messages to someone if you use instant messaging software, email or social networking sites.