Cyber wellness activity: Cyber Bullying

#Definition: ‘Cyber bullying' is bullying which uses e-technology as a means of victimising others. It is the use of an Internet service or mobile technologies - such as e-mail, chat room discussion groups, instant messaging, webpages or SMS (text messaging) - with the intention of harming another person. Examples include communications that seek to intimidate, control, manipulate, put down or humiliate the recipient.

An example would be if a child's account was hacked into by another child and this child went and send hateful messages to their friends using the child's account. Then the friends that were in the victim's account may gets offended by what the "victim" has said and may also try to cyber bully the victim, without the victim knowing what is the real truth.

Another example would be by using their blogs, the bully may post offensive things on their blogs (where everyone can see) to defame the victim. They may post humiliating things that may have been private for the victim. This examples may get out of hand and pour over to real life, hence creating misunderstandings between the victims and his friends.



#Cyber bullying is an important and personal issue they have to deal with. For one, if they are unable to handle it well and take things in their stride, they will most likely end up despairing or beaten in the self-esteem. It is important for our students to be equipped with skills to handle this situation as it will prevent situations where the student gets stressed with uneccessary problems. This will definitely affect their emotions and their personal life adversely as they will be wallowing in self pity or turn to extremes in terms of anger and angst management. They will then find it hard to concentrate in classroom lessons. On the part of teachers, we can educate the students on the safety and the security on the way they use the internet. We can also educate them on the consequences if they continue to bully them online. 

We can also educate them on what to do when they are targeted by bullies on the internet. but this is not something teachers can do alone. This is something that I think parents should work hand in hand with the teachers. As students spend a lot of time on the internet at home, parents should keep a watchful eye on the things that their young children say and do on the internet. We have to encourage our students to come to the teachers or their parents if they have a problem online. If we work hand in hand, the chances of cyber bullying happening will decrease tremendously. 

Cyber bullying will affect the student's self-esteem and self confidence as friendship is important to them. If what was being said or posted affects their friendship, friends may lose confidence in the victim and this makes the victim's self esteem drop. Students facing such dilemma usually would behave more eccentrically and it will be much harder to reach them as compared to an ordinary student who has a balanced lifestyle and confidence level. Ultimately, it is going to affect the classroom management. If the “cyber victim” student refuses to cooperate in class and threatens to give the teacher more than what the teacher  ask for, this is likely to get the other classmates to be disengaged in the process of lesson. The other students may also be distracted and get confused by the ongoing agenda, and at the end of lesson the lesson output will be very much lesser than expected and lesson will not be effective.



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http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/index2.htm
http://www.ssagsg.org/LearningSpace/EntertainmentGaming/CyberBullying.htm
http://www.schools.sa.gov.au/speced2/pages/cybersafety/36277/?reFlag=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber-bullying
http://schools.mtco.com/~efoster/Handbook/HandbookWeb_files/page0014.htm