Types of Cyber-bullying
About fifty percent of students are affected by traditional
bullying each school day. It can occur in transit to and from school, as well
as inside the school grounds. Most often words are used to carry out the
bullying. For example, bullied students may hear insults, name -calling,
taunting, gossip about them, and/or teasing. This type of bullying occurs in
the real world. However, cyber-bullying, the latest phenomenon in bullying has
made life extremely unbearable for many students.
This type of bullying is not restricted by the time of day, day of
the week, and you can hide your role as a coward by not facing your victim. Regrettably,
the imagined anonymous nature of the internet often insulates the bully from
consequences of their destructive behavior. Due to technology advancements and
cost decrease, household internet and cell phone ownership has increased. As a
result, cyber-bullying is carried-out through text messages, emails, photos,
and social media networks. Malicious and insulting information can go globally
in a matter of hours or days. Bullies have even created different ways to
cyber-bully.
The following types of cyber-bullying are probably
the most common.
v Harassment: It involves the bully
sending offensive and malicious messages to an individual or a group and is
often repeated multiple times. Cyberstalking is
one form of harassment that involves continual threatening and rude messages,
and can lead to physical harassment in the real or online world.
v Flaming: Flaming is like
harassment, but it refers to an online fight exchanged via emails, instant
messaging or chat rooms. It is a type of public bullying that often directs
harsh languages, or images to a specific person.
v Exclusion: Exclusion is the act of
intentionally singling out and leaving a person out from an online group such
as chats and sites. The group then subsequently leave malicious comments and harass
the one they singled out.
v Outing: Outing is when a bully
shares personal and private information, pictures, or videos about someone
publicly. A person is “outed” when his information has been circulated
throughout the internet.
v Masquerading: Masquerading is a
situation where a bully creates a fake identity to harass someone anonymously.
In addition to creating a fake identity, the bully can impersonate someone else
to send malicious messages to the victim.
Which of these have you experienced? Let us know in the comments.
