Monique Ross

Play media comment.

Cyberbullying

There were three methods that I used during my research to understand people that have been bullied first hand and people that have witnessed it. I used 62 online surveys, 4 interview questions and 10 participants in my focus group. The online surveys gave me a perspective that weather one has been bullied or not it is very hard to tell when someone has been affected. 64% of my respondents stated that, cyberbullying will make people hate social media and ultimately lead to a depressed state. There are many news reports about suicide due to cyberbullying and is a growing issue among youth and even adults.

The focus group and interviews were able to expand my horizon about the topic while I was able to qualitatively code it. The one on one interviews were actually very in depth, much more than I anticipated for. The focus group had great comments too but they seemed to lose focus very easily and get off topic which prolonged the overall session. A few of the interviews talked about being personally affected during their middle school days. The cyberbullying typically happened from close friends whom soon became enemies. A few suggestions for fixing this growing problem was awareness to parents and schools about the issue. Most of the people in my focus group stated that if they were personally affected or knew someone affected by cyberbullying, their parents never knew of the issue. Most of the parents thought their child's isolation was a phase, they never knew the real issue of depression due to cyberbullying.

My research question is, how does personal or witnessed experiences with cyberbullying affect how people view social media?

My data was able to answer this question because of all the interviews and focus group participants. They were able to give me insight about how they handled first hand experiences by deleting their social media or cyberbullying back in a defensive way. They typically only bullied back to make the other person stopped which ultimately did not work according to plan. People that witnessed this issue changed their social media behavior by defending people that they felt needed their help and being more aware that this was a damaging issue.

My hypothesis stated, people who experience or witness cyber-bullying will change their online behavior to try and limit their exposure to potential bullying.

My data answered it by claiming that they would make a difference in their social media use. 100% of my interviewees stated they had made a change due to personal experiences with cyberbullying and 8 out of 10 of my focus group participants stated that they have made a change as well. A change that was common among victims was deleting their social media account altogether to get away from the negative comments and put downs of pictures and statuses. A girl named, Medha, mentioned that when she first came to the US from India, she was cyber bullied online a lot and a few girls went on her account and deleted her Myspace account. She was really mad and hurt by that because she had all her pictures on there and they just thought it was a funny joke. A way for a bystander to change their social media behavior is sticking up for someone in need. A few people mentioned how they would make witty comments when they felt a person was being too harsh and that could alleviate the problem.

Overall, I enjoyed gathering all the information because it gave me a good idea of how various people feel about the issue. Since most of my participants were directly or indirectly affected by cyberbullying it made it easier to discuss. A lot of them were strongly in support to anti-bullying and I thought that it was good to have a group of people in my focus group that shared that common ground. I realized that simply being there for someone and listening to them speak about an issue and ensuring that they have a voice could make all the difference in the outcome for a victim. A few of my interviewees mentioned that schools should take action because the definition of what bullying is various from state to state. The schools should be the ones to define this issue and address it when it comes about because most of the time is starts in a school setting and then expands. I was happy to know so many people willing to make a change and it amazed me how growing this issue really was due to the every so rapid growth of technology.