Cyber Bullying - Being Mean on a Modern Machine

Robert Post

Project Three

Dr. Powell

Due: November 15th 

Robert Post

Elizabeth Anne Powell

English 1010                      “Being Mean on a Modern Machine”

11/11/13

What is cyber-bullying? Where is cyber-bullying? When did it start? All of these questions are some that many people don’t know. Sure you might have an idea but there are a lot more answers to these questions that the average person might not have known.  Most people might think cyber bullying is taken place online, But there is a lot more places that this crime is happening. When did cyber-bullying start? Well in fact this term did not exist until about 1995. Every year after that it gets bigger and bigger. There is an issue at hand that is a tough one to address. The issue is how to stop cyber bullying, how to punish the cyber bullies, and how to find the cyber bullies. This is hard because you cannot chase the person you must chase i.p. Addresses and other computer software that might not let you in.

My group and I started thinking of interview questions we could ask our participants, and we also had to think about whom we were going to interview. My group and I came up with 5 questions each and found that most of us had the same questions. We had to come up with 8 total questions and we found out that questions about cyber bullying were pretty short answers (meaning yes or no), so we decided to come up with sub questions if one of the participants were to have a yes or no answer. An example of this would be: Have you ever been cyber bullied? If yes: how, why, when, and where? If no: How would you react if someone were to cyber bully you? This is how my group and I got around the short answer questions. My group and I also needed a variety of participants ranging from age and people who use the Internet and people who don’t really know much about the Internet. Now how did my participants respond, what stood out to me?

I learned a lot about the topic just from conducting these interviews. My participants had very interesting answers to my questions. The answers that I was receiving from my participants also had similar thyme that caught my attention. I interviewed four people from the ages of eighteen through fifty-nine and out of those four people three of them had the same sort of story relating to cyber bullying.

My sister, Allison Post had been cyber bullied because of this other girl was trying to steal her boy friend.  She says, “A girl was posting disgusting pictures of me on Facebook and writing mean things on my wall.” (Post). Another one of my participants, Stella Paris has a similar story as my sister. Stella describes one of her friends going through a break up. She says, “One of my friends broke up with her boyfriend and he would not leave her alone on twitter. He posted false things about her wall where everyone could see.” (Paris). Now do you see the thyme? I found that relationships are the reasons why these conflicts start up online.  Relationships have started both of these cyber-bullying conflicts. Stella Paris also had had an interesting answer to my second question: Have you ever been cyber bullied? She replied yes because she met a guy at a club and she gave him her name and that night he added her on face book. Stella added him not think anything about it and within a couple of days he was being really weird. He would like almost every on of her photos and statuses. The guy was obsessed with her; he basically thought they were dating. Stella had to delete her Facebook and was going to have to call the police if the bullying didn’t stop. Again this conflict started from a relationship.