Social Media: Giving Rise to Bullying?

Bullying is a simple fact of school life, most people will experience some level of it at some point through their school and university careers but is there an argument for the presence of social media giving rise to a greater number of people being subjected to bullying?

School is a time for discovering what you’re good at, what you’re not, what sort of people you like and don’t and the friendships that you make and break will shape who you grow into. Bullying tests your resilience to those more trying times and it can be as serious as to make or break a person, some struggle but push through and become a more resilient person, some let it bounce off them and are relatively unaffected and then there are the saddest group that cannot take it and retreat into their shells never to reappear.

There is an argument for the rise in social media playing a major role in bullying. Children can be innocent and accepting of all people regardless of race, class, gender, sexuality and so on and so forth but they are also liable to point out how some people are different from others – there is no threshold for appropriateness. This means that simple things, like not having the latest gadget, leaves some children vulnerable to ridicule and this is where bullying can begin. Then there is the additional threat that comes with all of these gadgets: social media.

Facebook, MySpace and other such social networking sites are prime mediums for bullying to spawn. Firstly there is little or no adult supervision so children can both see what older members of the site are doing and they can also say things through type that they would not say through the spoken word because of the consequences – the internet allows for fewer consequences simply because of the perverse nature of being social and antisocial simultaneously. Secondly, there is a type of fever created around certain things, people jump on bandwagons much quicker if they see that friends or people they admire are also participating.

For victims of bullying it can also be a typical catch-22 situation. If they have accounts there is no escape from bullies, they can be accessed all the time and potentially the content on that page can be used to fuel the bullies but it is also way to become accepted and stop the bullying. Conformity is the best way to avoid bullying because you are anonymous among a pack.

There are lots of forms of social media available and indeed devices that allow easy access to these accounts but they are all accessed, one way or another, through the internet. For more information on internet or mobile phone service providers contact them directly on the Orange contact number. You can also find the contact details for all other service providers at the Customer Services Contact website.