Emerging Issues

Emerging Issues: Cyber Bullying

Technological advancements in today's world as led to a new pathway for bullying. School-age children and younger are learning how to become advanced users of the computer, the internet, and cellphones. Social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter are making it easier for bullying to happen outside of school along with the popularity of text messaging among young children. Many parents struggle with what age is appropriate to let their child have a Facebook account or a cellphone. Every parent has different views on the acceptance of these items in their child's life, but once they allow their child to have these items they struggle with how much parental monitoring should be involved. 

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Vast amounts of research are available today about cyber bullying because one out of four children are victims of cyber bullying (Dilmac & Avdogan, 2010). Three hundred students consisting of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders were given a questionnaire titled "Cyber Bullying Question List" to help quantitatively measure cyber bullying. The study conducted by Dilmac and Aydogan focused on the behavior of cyber bullying related to values such as responsibility, respect, and honesty held by school-aged children. The study concluded that children that had values and high moral standards were less likely to participate in cyber bullying activity. Also, the study found that 44.5% of children who were cyber bullies would hide their identity which gave them the feeling that they could be even more hurtful since the victim did not know them.

Dilmac, B. & Aydogan, D. (2010). Values as a predictor of cyber-bullying among secondary school students. International Journal Of Social Sciences, 5(3), 185-188