Technology Usage and Cyber Bullying among Students

Abstract

Today with increase in use of technology among young population, cyber bullying is a prevalent issue worldwide. Bullying has always been a problem but now the perpetrator has access to the victim outside of the school, college or workplace. On one hand social media is widely used by the youth for staying socially connected and expressing themselves, they find themselves exposed to anonymous strangers. Databases such as PubMed, google scholar, psych info and psych articles were navigated with appropriate keywords. Originally 51 papers were looked at before narrowing down based on the inclusion criteria. The research data shows that male students were more likely to be the perpetrators and victims of cyberbullying. Females employed psychological abuse more than males. Aggressors displayed delinquency, substance abuse and poor parent-child relationships. Victims reported feelings of anger, sadness, hurt, embarrassment, isolation, humiliation and helplessness. Victims also experienced depression, social phobia, poor concentration, burnout, low efforts in job search, decrease in academic performance and social sensitivity. Students from minority groups, lower social strata, perceived as weak, disabled were more likely to be cyber bullied. Factors like anonymity, cultural elements, low academic pressure, desire to dominate contributed to perpetrators indulging in cyber bullying. In some cases, a victim of traditional bullying can become a perpetrator of cyber bullying. Tech giants like face book, Instagram and twitter have been at work to combat cyber bullying. Interventions such as employing Artificial intelligence tools such as NLP and NLC is being navigated. Additionally, tools that prevent offensive remarks before being posted are also being looked at. Precisely, targeting offensive comments in a conversation is tough due to the contextual nature of conversations. All these have been elaborated upon in detail.