“Its just the internet.” That is what you may hear if you tell someone about someone who is bothering you on the internet. You may even be one of those who will respond with that phrase. But now and days, it is not just the internet. The internet, social networking sites, and message boards have become a big thing in both the internet and the lives of many. They make friends, engage in conversations, and treat it as they would their social life. So when something goes wrong, it can hurt just as much as it does “in real life”.
Cyber bullying is just the same as offline bullying. Someone becomes teased, taunted, and picked on, by one or more people. This can begin with a problem or argument and turn into a bad experience. This can include insulting, stalking, threatening, and even stealing one’s personal photos and defacing them. While it may only be happening online, the pain and effects can be very real. To help you see how painful it can get, lets take a look at a few of the effects of cyber bullying.
The first effect of cyber bullying is humiliation. It is humiliating to be bullied, especially when it is in front of other people. When you are bullied on the school playground or at work, people may be watching. Well, when are bullied on a social networking site or message board, people can read it, which is almost the same as watching it. It’s humiliating to know that people are seeing the embarrassing insults someone is throwing at you.
Another effect is anger. When you are picked on and humiliated, it can in return cause you to become angry. We get angry when we fight with our loved ones, imagine how it can be when someone you do not know is bullying you? Especially when they keep going with it. This anger can even cause you to begin taking it out on your family and friends. It can also cause you to fight back or act out in a way that you normally do not.
The effects of cyber bullying can also cause your self esteem to decrease. When the bullying continues, especially if there is more than one person involved, this can eventually begin to make you wonder why this is happening. You may blame yourself for the bullying. For example, you may think “If I didn’t look this way” or “If I wasn’t a fan of this”. You may start to believe the taunting and question your self-worth.
Depression is another effect of cyber bullying. This can come from the decreasing of your self esteem. When you question your self-worth enough, and start to wonder if others feel the same way, this could lead to depression. Depression is not a healthy -or fun- thing to go through, and it could lead to other problems.
One more effect can be stress. Everything put together, the situation, the feelings, the previous effects, they can all become stressful. This can cause lack of eating or sleeping, worrying, headaches or other pain, and more. Everyday stress of money, work, school, or balancing a household can be enough. But add in the stress of cyber bullying, and this gives you one more thing to worry about.
Fear is another effect. Sometimes cyber bullying can lead to your bully making threats on you. Threats to find you, physically hurt you, or worse. As scary as it is, you never know if anyone can find a way of locating you. So this can put a lot of fear into you.
All of the effects of cyber bullying can also lead to suicide for some people. No, that is not something people want to hear. But unfortunately, it is true. From time to time, you may hear about it on the news, in news papers, or through other people about someone who was cyber bullied so much, that they could not take it anymore and ended their life. This is a very tragic and sad effect of cyber bullying, which is why it needs to stop.
As you can see, cyber bullying hurts worse than you think. Do not think just because it is “just the internet” that the bullying does not have an effect on people. It does, and it has big effects.
If you are being cyber bullied, it is important that you tell someone and take the proper precautions to stop it. If someone comes to you to let you know that they are being cyber bullied, then do not dismiss it as “only being the internet”. Find out what is going on and see if you can appropriately help. Please remember, before you take part in any cyber bullying, this can lead to big effects and emotional scars, and that is not something we should do to each other.
The effects of cyber bullying can be serious, and whether you are in person or online, bullying must come to an end before someone’s life does.
