Cyberbullying, the act of continuously harassing or humiliating someone through the internet or mobile phones, is a growing trend that can have severe psychological consequences on the victim.
Emily Groh, a University of Maryland journalism student and researcher, found that the prevalence of social media in society plays a crucial role in this phenomenon.
Groh and her fellow classmate, Gloria Johnston, researched this topic, as well as the aspects of social media appeal to younger audiences. The team analyzing randomly selected October 2011 cyberbullying articles from Google and digitally distributing a survey about social networks to participants between 18 and 26 years old.
Twitter and Facebook were the most common methods through which cyberbullying took place, although it also occurred through instant messangers. The sites were mentioned in about 43% of the articles and about 36% of the articles, respectively.
“Social networks have become such an integrated part of our youth's lives. However, this phenomenon is aiding people to indirectly kill others,” Groh said, referring to the high profile suicides of young adults such as Tyler Clementi, who were tortured by cyberbullying.
Clementi, a then-college freshman at Rutgers, was harassed and embarrassed by his roommate through the Internet because he was gay. In the study, 50% of the victims were bullied due to their sexual orientation, out of the articles that mentioned a primary reason for the cyberbullying.
Groh was surprised to find that (72%) of the victims were males because of the stereotypes that females are often viciously mean to other females. Only one of the articles mentioned that the bully was a stranger who did not personally know the victim.
A vast majority (85.7%) of the bullies in the stories were classmates of the victims and more than half (56.2%) the victims were high school students, though younger individuals were mentioned.
Groh interpreted this skew to be based on the fact that many high school students struggle with solidifying their identities, so they might be more inclined than middle and elementary school adolescents to “ put their anger out on others.”
Though Twitter was the most prevalent medium for cyberbullying, the survey showed that Facebook was the most popular social network for young adults.
Out of 128 participants, 126 (97.7%) reported having a Facebook account and 71 (56.3%) reported checking this website first when they logged onto their computer. Most (79.7%) indicated that they used the social media site primarily as a way to keep in contact with friends.
However, this research was designed to encourage individuals to expand their understanding of social media uses in our culture and to educate individuals about the possible consequences surrounding these uses of the sites.
“I want to show people that it is not always just about catching up with friends,” said Groh. “[Cyberbullying] is occurring throughout all age groups. It is not something to be taken lightly and parents, especially, need to make sure they know what is going on in their children's lives and online lives.”
