PROBLEM & SOLUTION ULAB 2122

PROBLEM AND SOLUTION TERM PAPER FINAL DRAFT

LANGUAGE ACADEMY, UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

Name: Haneef bin Azmi Section: 64

Muhammad Nur Faiz bin Nur Farzli

Mohammad Faiz bin Abd Sani

Title: WHY PEOPLE CYBERBULLY AND HOW TO PREVENT IT

Bullying is an action of abusing others. This unethical action has now evolved

to online platform and it is called cyberbullying. Nevertheless, cyberbullying has

become a serious issue in our modern society where everyone now has social media

account such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Nowadays, the most popular

platform for a person to cyberbully is by social media platform. All these social

platforms are free and easy for a person to create and run an account. This unlimited

access has given them a way to create a fake account with fake identity. Hence, this

paper is about how cyberbullying occurs in our modern society and three ways to

reduce it which are implementing an anti-cyberbullying policies, conducting awareness

campaign and monitoring children’s activity on Internet.

Various studies about cyberbullying have been analysed. In one study by

Anderson (2018), it is found that 59% of teenagers in U.S have been bullied of abused

online. Those teenagers also said that it is very problematic for people at their age. At

1 Sem 1, 2019/20
PROBLEM & SOLUTION ULAB 2122

the same time, most of the victims think that teachers, social media companies and

politicians are failing to acknowledge this problem. Other than that, Schneider, Smith

and O’Donnell (2013) have done a research on 25 areas in Boston and communities

there have reported that cyberbullying in high school is increasing steadily from 15%

in 2006 to 20% in 2010. While school bullying remains the same in the range of 26-

28% from 2006 to 2010. These reports are proof that cyberbullying act is rising.

According to Campbell (2005 as cited in Gunther, DeSmet, Jacobs & Bourdeaudhuij,

2016, p.54), Cyberbully victims are experiencing a greater levels of depression than

offline bullying. Unlike school bullying, once the victim gets home they are safe from

the bullying for a day, but with cyberbullying the victim might continue to get verbal

abuse in a form of text messages or emails wherever they are. As can be viewed from

the above findings and reports, it can be seen that cyberbullying is rising and must be

prevented wisely and effectively.

Cyberbully could happen due to many causes. One of them is the cyberbullies

actions are motivated by anger and revenge towards someone. According to Gordon

(2019), the cyberbully feel justified in doing so because they want others to feel the

pain they have been through. They may be satisfied to cyberbully others because they

think it is a justification for what they have experienced before. In addition, bullying

other people makes them feel dominant and have power on somebody else. According

to a major student study published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 40%

of students who cyberbully said that they do not feel guilty or embarrassed after the

bullying (Whitehead, 2018). This statistical evidence supported that heartless quality

in a person led to the cyberbullies actions.

2 Sem 1, 2019/20
PROBLEM & SOLUTION ULAB 2122

Besides, attention seeking also contributes to cyberbullying. Some people bully

others because they think it is the only thing they can do to pay attention to themselves

because they need it most (Radwan, n.d). Furthermore, people feel that they are lonely

and try to attract as much attention as they can either in good or bad manner. In

general, people need other’s attention as a medium for them to find moral support and

sharing problems. They will react in a negative way to their attention if they do not

respond in a positive way (Peterson, 2017).

Other than that, cyberbullies also cave under peer pressure. According to

Gordon (2019), other people will most likely to pressure and encourage cyberbullying

to others. This may include encouraging them to join everything bad from online hate

lists to mean social media posts. Because a person wants to feel accepted and valued

by their friends, they will do anything include something they would not otherwise do.

They start bullying and joining a group of people who did because they do not want to

be bullied and ostracized. Hence, bullying is sometimes an act of self-preservation.

Children are scared if they do not join in spreading hate and mean words or make fun

of others, then they are the one who will receive that (Gordon, 2019).

We need to solve this problem since cyberbullying is a serious issue because

it might not hurt people physically but online bully likes blackmailing or hate words can

affect people’s emotion and mental health. This problem will give big effects to the

bullies and victims. The victims of cyberbullying are most likely losing interest in

interacting with family and friends. They often feel that life is hopeless and

meaningless. On a serious note, it can lead to depression and suicidal thoughts

(Gordon, 2019).

3 Sem 1, 2019/20
PROBLEM & SOLUTION ULAB 2122

There are several solutions that are seem possible to solve the cyberbullying

problem from continuously happening in this world. The first possible solution to solve

this problem is schools need to implement an anti-cyberbullying policies for students.

According to Schneider, Smith and O’Donnell (2013) “In Massachusetts, state

legislation required every school district to develop anti-bullying policies. Any school

that implemented this policy needs to provide specific information for their students to

report and response to any cyberbullying acts”. As a result from the information given

on how to report and respond to cyberbullying, students could have the chance to

prevent the cyberbullying incidents from happening when they quickly report and

respond to it to the right authorities with proper way. Most schools that implemented

the anti-cyberbullying policies had informed their students the correct procedures for

reporting and responding to cyberbullying (Schneider, Smith & O’Donnell, 2013). In

this case, school is the main authority that should take action in implementing anti-

cyberbullying policies. Hence, school authority could teach their students and provide

full information on how to report and respond to cyberbullying through teachers and

staffs. Therefore, staff and teachers should be trained to help their students that are

facing cyberbullying. This can be seen like in Massachusetts, after the legislation had

been passed, some schools noted a rise in reports of cyberbullying that showed

students actually gained proper information to report cyberbullying and in response to

the legislation, most schools had incorporated a brief training on cyberbullying into

their existing staff (Schneider, Smith & O’Donnell, 2013).

The second solution for cyberbullying is to launch campaign regarding

cyberbullying that would increase public awareness about the harmful effects of this

problem. To illustrate, a campaign to enhance awareness in public about cyberbullying

4 Sem 1, 2019/20
PROBLEM & SOLUTION ULAB 2122

called #WiseUpWithWan had been launched by another organisation People Against

Cyber Threats and Harassment (PeopleACT), an initiative by the Malaysian Centre for

Constitutionalism and Human Rights (MCCHR) (Brown, 2017). In this modern world,

Internet could be one of the best platform to work on this campaign. It is not impossible

that every Internet user would have the chance to be exposed about this campaign

when they surf the Internet. Thereby, public would be more alert and aware about

cyberbullying effects and the role of netizens in Internet platform to prevent

cyberbullying from happening. According to Brown (2017), the goal of this campaign

is to raise awareness about the harmful effects of cyberbullying and the importance of

creating an empowering cyberspace rather than destructive space for netizens. In

addition, to raise awareness through the project, PeopleACT has conducted year-

round consultative meetings with governmental and non-governmental partners to

gain feedback on cyber-harassment and cyberbullying issues. Basically, any

responsible organization including governmental and non-governmental should take

action for this campaign. The responsible organization could organise a program or

campaign that would help cyberbullying victims and create awareness among public

regarding cyberbullying issues. For instance, Generasi Gemilang (GG) organization

has leadership and character program that reach out to teenagers which would help

them to build character and avoid from being cyberbullied. People Against Cyber

Threats and Harassment (PeopleACT), an initiative by the Malaysian Centre for

Constitutionalism and Human Rights (MCCHR), had launched a campaign to create

public awareness about cyberbullying (Brown, 2017).

Last but not least, parents should monitor the usage of Internet among their

children to make sure their children are not being cyberbullied or cyberbullying others.

5 Sem 1, 2019/20
PROBLEM & SOLUTION ULAB 2122

Therefore, an appropriate online behaviour should be exposed by parents to their

children as well as appropriate offline behaviour to teach their children to respect

others and avoid themselves from cyberbullying another Internet user (Hinduja &

Patchin, 2014). Parents who monitor their children’s activities would influence their

children to make them as guidance when they feel something distressing or

unpleasant on Internet. However, parents should be honest and open in monitoring

children exploration on cyberspace to avoid their children from feel offended. Since

parents are not always available to monitor their children’s activities, they need to

cultivate a frank communication with the children so that the children will look for them

if they feel something unpleasant on Internet (Hinduja & Patchin, 2014). In all, parents

should play a main role in monitoring and exposing appropriate behaviour on Internet

to their children. Parents could teach the children some good manners when surfing

Internet to avoid from being cyberbullied or cyberbullying others. Furthermore, parents

also could monitor their children’s Internet activities by using Parental Monitoring

software to make sure they are in safe condition. It is important that parents pay even

more attention to their child's devices usage to ensure that they have internalized the

lesson and act responsibly on an ongoing basis. The monitoring can be done using

software or active participation in children’s Internet experiences (Hinduja & Patchin,

2014).

From the three proposed solution, the best and most effective solution is

parents or adult should monitor the Internet usage of their children. Therefore, by

installing monitoring software such as Parental Monitor software in the computer,

parents can know their children Internet activities. Hence, the inappropriate activity

6 Sem 1, 2019/20
PROBLEM & SOLUTION ULAB 2122

such as cyberbullying can be prevented. According to Zaman and Nouwen (2016),

these tools, apps or services that parents can rely on in an attempt to keep their

children safe. Such controls enable parents, for instance, to prevent children from

seeing inappropriate online content, and to detect cyberbullying at an early stage.

Despite the parents being care about their child, the drawbacks of this solution is, it

may break the children’s trust towards their parents. Zaman and Nouwen (2016) stated

that the use of parental controls has repercussions that not only involve opportunities

with respect to children’s safety, but also threats that affect the trust relationship

between the parent and children. After all, we cannot be so sure that parental guidance

is the most effective ways among others solution, but it still a good way to reduce

cyberbullying among children. Most children are more likely to obey to their parents

and does not want to disappoint them in any way.

All in all, this essay discusses how cyberbullying occur in our modern society

and three ways how to reduce it which are implementing an anti-cyberbullying policies

at school, conducting awareness campaign to educate public and parents should

monitor their children’s activity on Internet. Preventing cyberbully activities is important

because they mainly use social media as a medium and social media is very common

among us. Hence, the possibilities are high for us or people around us to get

cyberbullied. Cyberbully can reach large audience and their action can go viral

because social media is very public. If it happens, it is considered as victory to the

cyberbully. The proposed solutions are there as a cleanser for a toxic behavior in our

modern society because bully can leave a bad effect on someone’s life. Therefore, we

hope that monitoring children’s activity on Internet can be applied quickly so that the

act of cyberbullying will stop from rising and getting worst.

7 Sem 1, 2019/20
PROBLEM & SOLUTION ULAB 2122

REFERENCES

Gordon, S. (2019). 8 Reasons Why Kids Cyberbully Others. Retrieved from

https://www.verywellfamily.com/reasons-why-kids-cyberbully-others-460553

Gordon, S. (2019). How Peer Pressure Leads to Bullying. Retrieved from

https://www.verywellfamily.com/peer-pressure-and-bullying-what-is-the-connection-

460496

Zaman, B. & Nouwen, M. (2016). Parental controls: advice for parents, researchers

and industry. p.1-3 . Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301775592_Parental_controls_advice_for_

parents_researchers_and_industry

Anderson, M. (2018). A Majority of Teens Have Experienced Some Form of

Cyberbullying. p.2. Retrieved from https://www.pewInternet.org/2018/09/27/a-

majority-of-teens-have-experienced-some-form-of-cyberbullying/

Gunther, N. , DeSmet, A. , Jacobs, C.L. & Bourdeaudhuij, I. (2016). Comparing

associated harm with traditional bullying and cyberbullying: a narrative overview of

mental, physical and behavioural negative outcomes. p.54. Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272754808_Comparing_associated_harm_

with_traditional_bullying_and_cyberbullying_a_narrative_overview_of_mental_physi

cal_and_behavioural_negative_outcomes

8 Sem 1, 2019/20
PROBLEM & SOLUTION ULAB 2122

Rogers, C. (2018). What really causes cyberbullying? Herald-mailmedia. Retrieved

from https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/life/what-really-causes-

cyberbullying/article_9ff3c3ed-b55c-5b89-9e04-a8c8dcbb9137.html

Radwan, M. F. (n.d). Why do people cyberbully. Retrieved from

https://www.2knowmyself.com/why_do_people_cyberbully

Peterson, C. (2017). The new bully: an evolution into a self-esteem, attention seeker

Krcgtv online. Retrieved from https://krcgtv.com/news/stop-bullying-mid-mo/bullies-

evolve-from-insecure-to-high-self-esteem-attention-seekers

Schneider, S. K. , Smith, E. & O’Donnell, L. (2013). Implementation of School-Based

Prevention Efforts and Implications for Social Media Approaches. Social Media and

Cyberbullying. p. 2-14. Retrieved from

http://www.promoteprevent.org/sites/www.promoteprevent.org/files/resources/Social

_Media_and_Cyberbullying_FinalReport-EDC_0.pdf

Brown, V. (2017). Cyberbullying: Words can hurt too. The Star Online. Retrieved

from https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/10/19/cyberbullying-words-can-

hurt-too

Hinduja, S. & Patchin, J. W. (2014). Cyberbullying: Identification, Prevention, &

Response. Retrieved from https://cyberbullying.org/Cyberbullying-Identification-

Prevention-Response.pdf

9 Sem 1, 2019/20