Recently more than ever before, the internet and social networking websites have become a highly dramatic issue among youth, in turn having a negative impact upon student relationships and students attitudes towards education throughout schools. With the establishment of the internet epidemic ‘Facebook’, an entire new world of communication has been developed, however, along with this, a fresh new level of internet bullying and harassment has been born. With Facebook having a vast target audience, it is widely known that the youth of Generation Y are the major participants in the online network. From this is can be therefore drawn that cyber bullying has become a large issue among the youth of today, in turn influencing heavily the way in which students interact with one another, and their overall attitude towards schooling.
According to research conducted by the Child & Adolescent Psychiatry & Mental Health group, results drawn from various samples indicated that “Overall, cyber-victimisation emerged as an additional risk factor for depressive symptoms in adolescents involved in bullying.”. The research indicated that there is perhaps a link between students whom are both bullied via the internet and ‘traditionally bullied’ (verbal/physical bullying), this link highlights that those who are cyber bullied are also individuals who experience traditional bullying and that there is a distinct overlap between the two. This link was further explored throughout the results gathered which stated that “Across both samples, traditional victims and bully-victims reported more depressive symptoms than bullies and non-involved children. Importantly, victims of cyber-bullying reported significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms, even when controlling for the involvement in traditional bullying/victimisation.”. From the information and results drawn from this article an understanding of students attitudes towards schooling as well as one another is made evident. Depression is experiences by individuals whom experience (are the victims of) cyber bullying, therefore it is known that depression radically alters a students ability to participate and complete work, in turn highly impacting negatively towards their education. Not only does bullying of a particular individual induce depression but it creates some what of a ripple effect as once a student experiences depression, student-student, student-teacher and student-parent relationships are at higher risk of deterioration. It appears that through the introduction of modern social networking sites from the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and many more, depression rates among youth (students) have dramatically increased. These levels of depression furthermore impact upon education systems as schools are pushed to have to deal with bullying issues that happen outside of the school area however drastically impact upon the school environment overall.
As a student who graduated just last year I can distinctly remember the exact point that cyber bullying became an issue throughout my grade in particular. Matters were put into the principles hands as the arguments that were being carried out via a website called ‘Formspring’ were highly distressing the students involved. The argument which started with two people gradually grew drastically which saw vast amounts of other students creating accounts on this particular site all to be apart of what was going on. Through this issue i noticed that there was a distinct link between the school environment and the social networking space as the issue travelled via word-of-mouth, however, actions were taken via the internet. The principle was in a highly difficult situation as many students and parents argued that the issue did not concern the school as it was carried out, outside of schools grounds. However it was widely known that the issue lead to the division of a grade and many students were highly distracted from, and became entirely disinterested towards their studies.
REFERENCES:
Perren et al. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 2010, retrieved fromhttp://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1753-2000-4-28.pdf
I agree with your statements regarding cyber bullying having become an incredibly large issue in regards to a student's mental health. Unlike traditional forms of bullying in the classroom, cyber bullying has meant that bullying and negative behavior taken out towards a child has become much harder to escape. With adolescent dependence on social media and internet for social purposes as well as it's use as a main provider of news and knowledge along with the increasing use of such technologies in the classroom, it can be seen that a child can never truly escape such things when being constantly surrounded by them.
ReplyDeleteHowever, my true question would be, how will we ever be able to put a stop to such issues? Due to this increased dependence upon media technologies (this being further promoted in the classroom), how are we to stop cyber bullying, especially when there is the issue of whether or not such acts are to be considered in relation and accordance to the child's school and teachers? Internet censorship for students is too unachievable for monitoring a student's use of media's in the home, and for teacher involvement in issues taking place outside of school times and their boundary of care is even more unthinkable, with issues of ethics raising themselves (a teacher not being legally allowed to contact a child through social media for any other reason than in regards to school work, and this would be done through email, not through any other forms of online contact). To me, it seems an unfortunate truth that at our current state of limitation in regards to school and teacher involvement in the prevention of such issues can only lead to them being addressed only once having occurred and subsequently (or hopefully) reported to the school, for student’s involved to be addressed and dealt with accordingly. However, we can still be hopeful that sometime in the near future developments will be made to intersect these issues more clearly with better standing results for victims. How this will be done seems unclear.
- Maddison Smith