Wasn't assigned this week, but nobody posted, so here goes...
http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/27/a-glimmer-of-hope-in-a-bad-news-survey-about-bullying/
I'm sure that everyone has heard about the obscene number of internet bullying-related suicides in recent news. When I read chapter 8 and came to the section on deindividuation, that was the first thing I thought of. This article talks about bullying (while physically in school), and blatantly leaves out the whole concept of internet bullying which single-handedly led to the 10 suicides in September. I was shocked when I read this - clearly, the issue has gone beyond the playground, and this article gives parents/guardians a false sense of security. "A Glimmer of Hope"? Really? Do you guys think this article is an example of flawed groupthink which the textbook at one point refers to as a "social disease"?
I felt shocked when I first heard that 10 teens committed suicide in September from internet bullying. However, at the same time I see how it is possible. Once you put something on the internet, you can definitely lose control and privacy which gives bullies many opportunities. (An example of internet social privacy: If you want someone to take down a picture of you on facebook, the only action you in particular can do is untag your name. The person may or may not take down the photo, which leaves a permanent trace of you online.) We have the easiest access in exploring others lives online and therefore have the easiest methods in bullying. Understanding why people bully is extremely important to learn, and I think this is definitely flawed groupthink. By bullying someone who is different, the bully’s social group becomes tighter. They also become more popular and have a higher social status. It’s bringing teens together, but for completely wrong reasons.
ReplyDeleteA very good point was made relating to bullying now and bullying before the internet. The internet is so public and it is a good way to get things out.. to lots of people and fast. Unfortunately, because of this, people take advantage of that and use it for bullying, which is completely humiliating for the person being bullied. After time and time again of being made fun of and called names, it really takes a toll on a persons self-esteem and the way they think people view them. They begin to think negatively about themselves and eventually, it becomes too much and unfortunately there have been far to many suicides in young teens relating to bullying. It was interesting to see that kids in private school felt safer and were bullied less. I think the study we watched in class about prejudice with the teacher and the first graders eyes should be done for bullying as well.
ReplyDeleteI am still in shock at the 10 recent deaths caused by bullying. The internet has become a huge social networking tool, and a way to just tap into someone else's life through a google search or scanning over someone's facebook- it's honestly kind of scary that our lives have become so public. Throughout the years, bullying has become more and more extreme, especially among middle school and high schoolers. Some kids really don't understand how much of a negative effect their harassing and constant bullying plays on that other person, unfortunately until too late. Bullying can ruin someone's life. We all know how it feels to have someone tease us, bully us, whatever you want to call it- it really makes you feel awful. It is important for us to understand why others bully, and it is important to learn how to prevent it. Perez Hilton recently asked other celebrities to make a viral stream of positive words regarding the recent suicides. Its promising to see people doing good, and showing their support.
ReplyDeleteI have heard a lot about this topic recently in the media, however I was unaware of how server it had become. I was shocked when I read that 10 teens had committed suicide in September alone. This topic is defiantly an example of flawed groupthink. When a person bully’s someone whom belongs to an out-group they become popular and have a higher status within there own group. The Internet has therefore made it easier to bully someone because now they don’t have to be physical confronted by the person. They only need to click a button then the damage is done and it cannot be removed. I feel that more attention needs to be paid to this topic and maybe the techniques, which were used for discrimination, could be used.
ReplyDeleteI am also a bit irritated with the article not mentioning much about cyber bullying, other than to say there was going to be little mention. However, I understand where the writer is coming from. The Internet made bullying much easier, but there are still those old fashioned forms of teasing out there that can be just as hurtful. To see statistics that say those types of discriminatory acts are on the decline is positive. Maybe once students are educated about these other forms of bullying, they will come to the realization that cyber bullying is just as wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe internet is relatively new to us, we're still trying to figure out how it can fit into our lives, and sometimes we forget to think about how increased access to the internet affects the younger generations. The reason why cyber bullying is such a problem is that the internet allows the bully to be anonymous, calling someone names to their face requires more courage than being able to type out what you dislike about someone. Anyone can be a target, anyone can be a bully, not just the biggest or most powerful kids. Anyone can have embarassing videos or pictures put on a website, anyone's life can be ruined in seconds. The article does say that the nation is starting to target cyberbullying, but I think its a little late to just start. We've been using the internet for decades now, its clear that there is etiquette and rules that people, especially children, should follow to make sure that the powers of technology aren't used against us.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if the bullying in the article counts as groupthink, necessarily– in most cases, these kids aren't acting as a cohesive group with the intent of ruining one person's life; I think it's much closer to what the textbook said about mob mentality. The anonymity of the internet exacerbates the aggressive behavior that has always been present in adolescent and preadolescent social groups, and as the Milgram experiments showed, it's easier to inflict pain on someone when you feel detached from them. On the one hand, I think bullying is inevitable among children, and attempts to make everyone sit down and play nice will never succeed entirely. However, the past few decades have shown the internet to be a powerful tool in escalating these kinds of behaviors– a gun rather than a fist fight, as the article says. Schools should have classes specifically addressing online etiquette and ethicality, emphasizing the impact a few unthought lines of type can have on another person's psyche. Parents, too, should impress on their children that using epithets or verbal abuse online is no better than calling someone names to their face, or even than abusing them physically. "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me" is a dangerously misleading proverb.
ReplyDeleteI think that a deeper problem than kids bullying kids is the adults and government in particular giving these bullies a reason to bully others due to their sexual orientation. For example laws like Don't Ask Don't Tell or Prop 8 being repealed. The internet then acts as a means for these thoughts spreading. When kids on social networks such as facebook etc are so easily influenced by other kid's opinions by means of status updates, wall posts, etc then the problem spreads further. Bullying is thus yes amplified by means of the internet, however what are we to do about that? You can't shut down the internet or monitor what people say obsessively. Thus, I agree with Judy in that parents need to educate their kids on bullying and in regards to bullying others about sexual orientation, the government along with parents need to stop sending mixed signals.
ReplyDeleteI was not as shocked as i was disappointed to read about the 10 suicides from this past September. Its a real bummer that today's young generations will jeopardize a fellow peer's reputation just to feel a temporary high of superiority within one's individual ingroup. The theme of bullying has distinguishably been present within past generation's adolescents for years, however on much more controlled intimate scale, making the degrees of bullying less extreme. With the endless freedom of the internet, bullying has become less personal and more easily widespread. I agree that parental figures and educational authorities should take a large portion of the responsibility for these acts. I think that the proverb "treat someone the way that you'd want to be treated" should be more heavily exercised in young peoples' educations and/or upbringings. Hearing the devastating stories of how one's bullying effected their victims could possibly eliminate the initiator's nature to bully. I thought that how religious private schools felt the least endangered in their school environments was appropriate considering the fact that religious schools educate moral ethics much more than public schools do. Even non-religious private schools had a much higher percentile of safe-feeling students than public schools because of caretakers/educators more intimate involvement with students. School really shouldn't only be about mathematics, science and/or history, if it focused on a broader spectrum of material such as moral ethics we could possibly have less suicides within adolescents.
ReplyDeleteSome of the statistics are really shocking in this article: 33% of students said there was a problem with physical violence, and 10% of public schoolers brought weapons to school? That's terrifying. This article is definitely acknowledging stereotypes as well: 48% of students at religious schools had been bullied, teased or taunted, compared with 45% of public school students and 47% of kids at private school. It feels like they are playing on the stereotype that public schools are rough. The final statistic, in 2008 73% of students said they felt unsafe at school, whereas in 2010 the number is only 24%. That seems like too exaggerated of a drop for just two years. I wonder if the students they polled in 2008 were still feeling uneasy about the infamous Virginia Tech shooting the year before.
ReplyDeleteInternet bullying is more dangerous than real world bullying because, as Michael Josephson said in the article, it is permanent and spreads fast, as well as it is hard to control and becomes public. If peer abuse happens inside the school, teachers can give warning to the students who spread the bad rumor and can control it before it becomes a bigger problem. However, in case of internet bullying, because of its anonimity and fast and wide-spread rumor, it is hard to know who started it first and it is almost impossible to remove every bullying post. Furthermore, because it becomes so public that people who even do not know the bullied person can see the post and bully him/her, the stress the person gets from the bullying is intenser and he or she would be very depressed that may commit suicide.
ReplyDeleteInternet bullying is a terrifying reality. It also leaves a permanent trail of the abuse. It lives within the internet and can be rediscovered and distributed over and over again. I have never experienced anything like this but I can empathize with those who have and I find it appalling that people are losing their lives over it. It is shocking to think that 78% of students don't feel safe at school. In a time where one can put their whole personality and core beliefs so every one can see them makes me worry for the future as people lose more and more privacy.
ReplyDeleteThe bully problem has been there for so long. What make us comeback and focus on this issue is because the internet amplifies the effect of bullying so much more. In the past, if someone got hold of some embarrassing picture of someone else the way for them to reach the largest audience is to post it on the bulletin board in school, which probably only people in the school will see it; printing those pictures out take more time and money to do so, too. However with cell phone and internet, people can snap picture anywhere and upload them at anytime without worrying spending time and money to just bully someone. The audience internet can reach are far more than a bulletin board. Kids feel safer in school could make some sense, because there are teachers and others those kinds of looking over them, and place that’s really not safe is probably after school when they went out and do stuff. Kids who know how to bully probably aren’t all into physical bullying these days anymore, cause they can just throw a word about someone on facebook then it will probably turn into a whole story that peoples will be talking about.
ReplyDeleteBullying should have alot more attention payed to it considering it is such a huge factor in the development of adolescent's self concepts and confidence. Kids and Teenagers are incredibly succeptable to the opinions of others, and are subject to group environemtns where bullying matters and is weighted very highly in their self evaluations. This is why there have been suicides as a result of something that a more matured adult could most likely brush off their shoulder. Especially with social networks online, a person is an even easier target for bullying. Bullying over the internet, which I agree is neglected from being talked about sufficiently in this article, is a form of deidividualization in that it separates the bully from being physically accountable via the computer and persona/alter ego that exists online. This is a much more modern and common form of bullying right now that should be talked about and worked harder to be prevented.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that the article is necessarily attempting to sugar-coat the reality of bullying in schools but rather to emphasize that anti-bullying programs have played a vital part in any reduction over the last few years. This stresses the importance of implementing these programs everywhere no matter what an individual school's bullying statistics may be. The president of the Josephson Institute, which conducted the survey, pointed out that times have changed--that the difference between bullying 20 years ago and bullying now is the difference between getting into a fist fight and using a gun. This is a major point that must be acknowledged in order for people to wrap their minds around these statistics. The adults with the power to establish anti-bullying programs have to first accept how different things are from when they were in school.
ReplyDeleteBullying happens by feeling difference or weakness from a targeted person or group. Internet is a device that connects people(or community) a lot closer than old analogue method. This is one dark side of internet. Objectively speaking, even though this is such a sad news to hear, we still get lots of benefits from internet and the formation of children morality is what the parents should accomplish. Bullying will happen somwhere, somehow, and the technology is the wrong target to blame. We should go back to the fundamental point and fix whatever's wrong there, and elemantry level education is what it is.
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