Cyberbullying in modern society

Since the creation of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee in the 1990s, there has been a wide extension of the usage of the internet. In the recent decade, as people have become more accustomed to using the internet in daily life, we took the accuracy and speed of the internet for granted. While we were happily surfing the net, going through pages on Twitter, Facebook or any other social media apps, we may have noticed an increasingly common phenomenon: cyberbullying. A considerable number of people have already suffered because of it.

So, what is cyberbullying? Generally, any form of bullying that takes place through digital devices and the internet where people can view, comment and share can be called cyberbullying. Cyberbullying may occur through any social media involving online interactions. And once an individual is attacked on the internet, the infectious nature of cyberbullying will begin to reveal itself. People merely commenting on an issue could end up with replies filled with cyberbullying, and the replier may be unconscious of the misdeed done. On large forums and platforms, having content accessible to almost anyone increases the effect. Sometimes when the line is crossed, cyberbullying turns into a violation of the law. Victims of cyberbullying, like bullying in real life, are likely to experience psychological trauma, and may even develop post-traumatic stress disorder. In certain extreme cases, victims of severe cyberbullying have tried to commit suicide.

A major characteristic of the internet society is the speed of information spread through the internet. This makes it an accelerated society, and the potential effect of an individual on the forum can be huge. An earnest adolescent netizen once said: “The ‘criminals’ of cyberbullying usually don’t have a satisfying life in reality, and the anonymity of the internet encourages them to act conceitedly on the internet. They gain their so-called confidence through committing acts of cyberbullying and think that they are capable of anything on the internet. In reality, however, they are merely fragile beings with a lonely heart and lonely life, with their only contributions to the society being their useless comments.” In some ways what this young netizen said is true. The ignorance and malfeasance of certain people and their actions on the internet have intensified the chaos on the internet. Usually in large cyberbullying events, the difference between reality and the virtual world is blurred by these bullies, and the initial difficulty of deciphering between the truth and false information is further increased.

So, what are the effects of cyberbullying? A victim’s rights, interests and privacy can be violated, and cyberbullying may affect the victim’s real life. Through means such as the human flesh search engine, netizens are now capable of penetrating the walls of the internet to directly harass the victim in real life. By psychological means cyberbullying is infectious to anyone, and the more publicity a person or user involved in cyberbullying has, the greater the potential effect may be, as there is more potential for the content to be viewed by more people. However, cyberbullying is especially pervasive among adolescents who are still experiencing rapid psychological growth in society. Whether being the perpetrator or the victim or just a spectator, adolescents have a shallow understanding of online society and are easily affected by external factors. Ultimately, this also makes adolescents the worst victims of cyberbullying.

In online society, where the prevalence of certain commenting styles and bad practices can spread quickly, cyberbullying can impact adolescents' views on life and also have a permanent effect on these young people. This may include altering the moral and legal concepts of adolescents. For example, in June 2015, an incident where a group of junior high school girls beat up another girl in the same school was reported on the internet, and a video was posted on the same webpage. The video ignited indignant netizens, and the girls involved in the incident suffered an online manhunt along with vengeance for the bullied girl. In this case, the lives of the aggressors were severely affected by cyberbullying, and even though they did something wrong, they didn't deserve such a response, which destroyed their entire lives. Even after an apology by one of the girls, the pressure on them didn't stop.

Even though the online world is not the entire world, nowadays many adolescents are intrigued by the internet. These adolescents, who are eager to interact with adults online, are likely to be hotheaded when talking about certain issues. When adolescents become involved in discussions with a lot of people, they are likely to become the victims of cyberbullying, merely because of their immature views. Being immersed in the complicated environment of the internet makes adolescents want to blend in, and in those cases when adolescents start to bully others online, even using humiliating language and profanity, it makes the inappropriate behavior spread even further.

Besides proving harmful to all, especially adolescents, cyberbullying has also become a barrier to creating an ideal and harmonious society. Cyberbullying, like many other kinds of violence, results in intensified conflicts between people, and the victim is crusaded against. This can be seen as a product of the freedom generated by the moderate anonymity of the internet, which undoubtedly prevents the creation of an ideal online society. Also, compared with other media, the speed of the internet makes cyberbullying possibly more hazardous, as more people can be involved in a cyberbullying event. The global internet makes words spread widely and also increases the tendency for something to spread.

Cyberbullying is one of the fundamental problems for online society and may well be the hardest to solve due to its peculiarity and impact on people. As the internet has become vital to people’s lives, cyberbullying no longer remains far from us, instead becoming a part of the online social environment. Be that as it may, it is a problem that will be solved one day. To eradicate cyberbullying, we need to advance the overall improvement of psychological quality among netizens. Internet legislation still needs progress, and the online world will eventually need a purge to restore a more civil virtual society, where people of all ages can discuss topics freely without fearing cyberbullying.

The author is a senior student from Ulink High School,Beijing.