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CYBER BULLYING 1

Running Head: Cyber Bullying

Cyber Bullying Amongst Adolescents and the Associated Developmental


Issues
Rico Nolan
SOCU453
Summer II
Brandman University

INTRODUCTION

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In this paper, creative conflict resolution values and psychodynamic
theories are analyzed to determine the long lasting effects of bullying on
adolescents. The paper looks at both the victims and the bullies and analyzes
these psychological effects from several scholarly sources.
There are also two interviews with members of the community that strive to
mitigate and end cyber bullying. These interviews come from a technological side
with an interview with the CEO of Milton Security Group and an educational side
with a teacher that works with students on a daily basis to prevent cyber bullying.
Each brought their unique ideas to the analysis but had very similar answers to
the interview questions.
There are several values that need to be looked at when bullying is
analyzed. These values as defined by Deutsch (2006) are reciprocity, human
equality, shared community, fallibility, and nonviolence. (p. 36-37). These values
play a major role in constructive conflict resolution, and bullying is just the
absence of these values in an individual. The value reciprocity, the value involved
in the maxim "do unto others as you would have done unto you (Deutsch, 2006,
p. 36). The bully loses this value when they are in conflict with the victim.
I looked into the link between these values and the psychodynamic
theories. The psychodynamic ideas of an active unconscious, internal conflict
and control and defense mechanisms are analyzed, and we look at how they
interact with the values of constructive conflict resolution. These correlations
were worked into the interview questions and allowed for deeper insight from the
experts.
I talked with James McMurry, CEO of Milton Security Group, about some
possible ways to prevent attacks. He noted that taking steps such as education
and the implementation of monitoring tools are some ways to reduce cyber
bullying.
According to Todd Brinker, a former computer teacher at Orange Lutheran
High School, implementing the Milton Adaptive NAC reduced the amount of
bullying while students were on campus. However, there was little that could be
done while students were at home. Todd started an education program at Orange
Lutheran to teach students about the effects of cyber bullying and what can be
done if they become a victim.
It was concluded that implementing a network appliance like the Milton
Adaptive NAC into a school, drastically reduced the cases of cyber bullying and
allowed for reprimand of any violators.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Bullying has had negative effects on adolescents for a long time. The rise
of social media and online presence has opened up a new form of bullying,
called cyber bullying.' There are several repercussions that have been linked to
cyber bullying in adolescents. With the biggest issues being thoughts of selfharm in those that have been bullied and developmental issues in both bullies

CYBER BULLYING 3
and those being bullied (Bannink et al., 2014; Gabriel, 2014; Landau, 2013;
Nicol, 2012). In the present paper, mental health problems from bullying are
examined and what can be done to mitigate such attacks. It is hypothesized that
cyber bullying is affecting the mental health and development of adolescents.
The following five literary sources and two interviews attempt to support the
hypothesis.
As many as 25% of teenagers have experienced cyber bullying at some
point" (Landau, 2013). Bullying has some long-lasting psychological effects.
Victims show a greater likelihood of agoraphobia, generalized anxiety, and panic
disorders, while both victims and bullies are at higher risk for depression, panic
disorders, agoraphobia, and suicide. Adolescents that were only bullying showed
a risk of antisocial personality disorder. (Landau, 2013) With adolescents today
growing up with technology all of their life (Bannink et al., 2014), bullying has
extended beyond the playground and allowed bullying to continue afterschool
through the next morning (Landau, 2013). "Recent cross-sectional studies have
shown an association between cyber bullying victimization and suicide" (Bannink
et al., 2014, p.1). "People who bully tend to have lower academic ability, more
health problems, they suffer from a lot of offline problems, and there have been
links with narcissistic traits" (Nicol, 2012, p.3)
In a recent article by Gabriel (2014), there is a question that is answered:
What problems are there with youths using social media as a means to measure
self-worth? The main focus of the article was the developmental issues that have
arisen from the cultural shift of sexualisation of children and teens. This shift
primarily affects girls but has shown that these trends have compressed
developmental stages, and accelerated puberty in all teens. "Identity is marketed
to teens, and self-worth is defined, by the narrow standards of physical beauty
and sexual conduct promoted by the porn and advertising industries" (Gabriel
2014, p. 105). Now that sexting' has become a common practice amongst teens
that are flirting and having fun with friends, there are concerns being expressed
about their cognitive development.
Children and teens are still developing cognitively, emotionally, and
socially, but are still producing lewd material. These developmental shortcomings
mean that they may not be fully aware that what they are doing could be
considered wrong. When they are constantly subjected to sexual content from
friends, social media, and television. Furthermore, they lack the understanding of
how the content they are creating is being used. The privacy of a single photo
sent to a boyfriend or girlfriend may find its way to a website and shared many
times over. This puts teens at further risk because they are opened up to ridicule
on a grander scale. The subsequent cyber-bullying that could erupt from a single
upload could be catastrophic and lead to suicide.

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Sexual exploration amongst children and teens is nothing new, but if
someone is being teased on the playground because they haven't developed yet,
this is usually localized to a single school, grade, or group of peers. With the
advent of social media and the Internet, the speed at which comments can be
made and images shared is much quicker and farther reaching. All of this can be
done without actually facing the person that is being ridiculed and gives people a
sense of safety when bullying. Cyber bullying presents unique challenges in the
sense that the perpetrator can attempt to be anonymous, and attacks can
happen at any time of day or night (Landau, 2013)
There have been several techniques of cyber bullying that have been
defined in recent years. In an article, Nuccitelli states "Educators, parents, and
the community at large must treat cyber bullying as a societally toxic
phenomenon." (2012). He lists several tactics that are being used by cyber
bullies as a means of education for the adult community. While sexting' is listed
as a technique, exclusion (indirectly sending a message that a child is not
included on), flaming (passionate online arguing), and exposure (public display,
posting, or forwarding communication or images) are the first three on the list.
Not that any one of the tactics is more important than the other. It just shows that
there are several tactics that have evolved to move bullying from the playground
to the Internet. These three tactics are the main tactics that pertain to this paper.
As it is well-known, children and teens are developmentally fixated on being
recognized by their peers (Nuccitelli, 2012). While schools are becoming more
involved with cyber bullying and the tactics being used, the anonymity of online
bullying and lack of school rules are making the protection of victims difficult. Law
enforcement has been getting more involved now that sexting' has come to the
attention of the media. The result will be the prosecution of bullies, victims, and
anyone that shares the pictures of minors. This will further cause mental health
issues as adolescents are prosecuted and exposed to media attention. This
increased pressure and the globalization of media will have the victim bullied by
a much bigger circle than their peer group.
Cyber bullying is affecting adolescents at an alarming rate. With the
compression of childhood, children are being exposed to issues that are out of
their developmental capacity (Gabriel, 2014). This adds increased pressure on
adolescents when they are put in situations where they may be exposed to cyber
bullying. With the acceleration of puberty, adolescents are stunted emotionally
and cognitively and do not have the ability to understand the risks that are
present with sexting.' With this threat of exposure and the inability to cognitively
handle such situations, the risk of mental health are increased. These mental
health problems can manifest into several psychological disorders and increase
the risk of suicidal tendencies.
RESULTS

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After seeing the alarming issues that come up when adolescents are subjected
to acts of bullying, I needed to go to the source and see what the experts had to
say about these issues. What better place to get the answers I need, than at a
high school. I was able to sit down with a friend of mine, Todd Brinker, a former
computer teacher at Orange Lutheran High School. He saw the heartache and
effects that victims of bullying face on a daily basis.
Todd has two daughters that attended Orange Lutheran, and I asked him
for some insights into the stages of development and how that affected his
daughters. "It was hard to watch them grow up, I mean I knew that they would be
bullied as no one is immune," Todd said. "As a parent, it was devastating to figure
out how little power I had over bullies. The first time they came home in tears
after being bullied, I just felt so helpless." Todd and I discussed the
psychodynamic concept of control and defense mechanisms. Sandy et al.
(2006), defines the control and defense mechanisms as People develop tactics
and strategies to control their impulse, thoughts, actions, and realities so that
they will not feel anxious, guilty, or ashamed. If their controls are ineffective, they
develop defense mechanisms to keep from feeling these disturbing emotions" (p.
333). Todd stated that his daughters developed different mechanisms to deal with
the bullying. However, he said he had more luck by giving them an outlet for their
anger. Todd is also a swim coach and got his daughters into competitive
swimming, which became their outlet.
An interesting turn on the subject, but Todd continued by saying that he has
encouraged a lot of his students to get into sports as a way to deal with bullies at
the school. My initial thought was what happens if they get teased on the team
they play on and what happens if they are not good at the sport? Todd talked
about how this was the coaches responsibility and how it is something that he
does not accept on his team. "If my team cannot support each other, then they
have no place on my team." That is all fine and well, but how could this prevent
cyber bullying? Education is what Todd said was key to preventing cyber bullying.
"There is very little myself or other faculty members can do to prevent bullying
that is not happening at the school," Todd said. He has worked with his school
administrators to develop a new education program and policies to help stop
cyber bullying specifically. The school's previous policy on bullying had no
mention of cyber bullying, and he felt that this was an issue that needed to be
addressed right away.
Todd's program taught students about different forms of bullying. He noted that
most of the students didn't know that they were being cyber bullied. They thought
that these comments on their social media pages were just their friends. I was
stunned by that, and asked him if he had any psychological issues come up in
these meetings? He said that he has a few students that went to talk to their
counselors and some that had to be on watch lists. He said he couldn't go into
too much detail on this part, though. He just wanted to let the students know that
they have options and they can go to people to get help. If they didn't get help, he

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worried that the psychological effects that I mentioned in my literary review would
come to the surface. He was certain that what students told him, were only the
very surface of the psychological issues.
Todd agreed with the research about the sexualization of minors and how he
could even see that in his daughters as they choose their outfits when going out.
He said that he noticed that they were developing sooner than he remembered
any other people were when he was growing up. This also came down to
education again and, moving forward, he is trying to teach kids about how they
view themselves. They do not need to put themselves out there in such a way
that sexting would become a problem. He admitted very quickly that the speed at
which information travels in modern times, leave everyone vulnerable if they
participate in such actions.
We talked about how he has changed things at the school to prevent
cyber bullying besides educating students. He said he got a device from Milton
Security Group that has helped him mitigate cyber bullying at the school. He said
that this device mitigated the issues of sexting and the widespread distribution of
material while at the school. For more about the device, I set up a meeting with
James McMurry, CEO of Milton Security Group.
The first question I had for James was how does his appliance help
mitigate cyber bullying. James said that his device looks at the individual network
packets as they pass through the network. By doing this, he said that the
adaptive NAC allows school officials to only allow certain traffic to pass through
the network. His device specializes in bring-your-own-device environments. This
means that his device will filter all of the student's phones and laptops that use
the network.
The device was only a part of a solution, he added and agreed that schools
need to reach out with programs like Todd built. "Education is key," he said, "we
can protect students at the school, but students need to be educated to identify
cyber bullying." He talked about how when he was a kid, he was picked on
constantly. He remembers the effects that it had on him, and how it eventually led
him to be a bully himself. This ended up getting him into trouble, and he was
nearly kicked out of high school. He said that he never really knew the harm that
he was doing until the counselors started to talk to him. He figured out that his
issues stemmed from when he was bullied. This caused anger and, when he
shot up during puberty, he realized that he felt that he could pick on people
smaller and weaker than him.
His parents offered him an ultimatum of being on his own or going into the
military. James chose the military and said he learned very quickly that bullying
was no longer an option. His education in the military was quite a bit rougher
than what he expects schools and parents to do now, but he still feels education
is key in the prevention of bullying. He used all of this to start Milton Security
Group, he said he didn't want kids to end up in a similar situation. If his device
could help mitigate the damaging effects of cyber bullying, then he feels that

CYBER BULLYING 7
more students will not end up in a situation like he had to face.
He finished by saying that he felt the psychodynamic definition of eternal
conflict fit his actions in high school the best. People may have internal conflict
between desires and conscience, desires and fears, and what the good self
wants and what the bad self wants; the conflict may occur outside of
consciousness (Sandy et al., 2006, p. 333). He knew what he was doing was
wrong, but after all of the years of bullying, he said that he built up walls around
his feelings. He doesnt want that to happen to his kids or any other kids.
This lead us to a discussion about school shootings and the troubled youths that
feel that this act is their only option. "These are kids that are troubled, and have
been the kids that have been picked on all of their lives," He said. We racked our
brains and couldn't think of any issues that happened that had been started by
the star football player. We concluded that it was always the kids that everyone
picked on, and it was the psychological damage that leads them to their
decisions.
Through the Milton appliance and school programs like Todds, students
have a better chance of living a better life. By resolving the issues at an early
age, and teaching children about the effects that cyber-bullying, or any bullying,
has on another person. They will grow up with a healthier respect for their peers
and should help them identify any psychological issues sooner.
DISCUSSION
When it comes down to how to fix these issues, there is a lot that needs to
take place. I think that the programs that James and Todd have put together are
great, but this still doesnt prevent kids from bullying each other after hours.
While I understand that they both know this, and hope that educating the
students is going to make things better. There needs to be more effort put on to
this side of the problem.
Children and teens are always going to be in conflict, and there isn't much
we can do about that. Reasoning and understanding need to be taught to
children, as they do not understand why things can't go their way. The sooner
that schools and parents can instill these methods of conflict resolution, the
better off their kids will be growing up.
This brings me back to reciprocity and how this is a key trait that needs to
be passed on. Too often children are coddled, and they do not know how to deescalate a situation that might arise online. I can't stress enough that education
will be key in the prevention of the psychological issues that have been
discussed in this paper.
Schools need to install appliances like the Milton Security Group NAC and
start programs off early like Todd started at the high school level. The problem
with Todd's program is that it comes way too late in an adolescent's life. Just as
James said, his trouble started when he was younger, and didn't manifest until

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later in life. To stop this, these programs need to be started earlier in their school
careers.
One more thing that would help would be counselors that are trained in
child psychology. With school funding cuts, it is difficult to see a school nurse, let
alone a school psychologist. Simple training of the school staff will help them
spot and take appropriate actions when issues arise.

References

Bannink, R., Broeren, S., Looij-Jansen, P. M., Waart, F. G., & Raat, H. (2014,
April) Cyber and traditional bullying victimization as a risk factor for mental
health problems and suicidal ideation in adolescents. PLoS ONE, 9, 1-7.
Retrieved August 3, 2014, from the Gale Academic OneFile database.
Deutsch, M. (2006). Cooperation and Competition. The Handbook of Conflict
Resolution: Theory and Practice: San Francisco: Jossey- Bass.
Gabriel, F. (2014, May) Sexting, selfies and self-harm- young people, social
media and the performance of self-development. Media International
Australia incorporating Culture and Policy, 151, 104-112. Retrieved August
2, 2014, from the Gale Academic OneFile database.
Landau, E. (2013, April 15). When bullying goes high-tech. CNN. Retrieved
August 2, 2014, from http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/27/health/cyberbullyingonline-bully-victims/
Nicol, S. (2012, December) Cyber-bullying and trolling. Australian Clearinghouse
For Youth Studies, 31, 3-4. Retrieved August 3, 2014, from the Gale
Academic OneFile database.
Nuccitelli, M. (2012, Fall) 2012 cyber bullying tactics. The Forensic Examiner, 21,
24-27. Retrieved August 2, 2014, from the Gale Academic OneFile
database.
Sandy, S. V., Boardman, S. K., Deutsch, M. (2006). Personality and
Conflict. The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice: San
Francisco: Jossey- Bass.

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