New & Improved Bullies

 It takes little to no effort on my part to find information online about cyber-bullying.  Search results include examples of how kids, teenagers, and young adults are cyber-bullied and famous cases.  However, more search results show how people are making a stand and trying to prevent cyber-bullying.  There is actually an overwhelming amount of information on the subject that I need to begin sorting through…

While browsing our Wiki, I came across the article “Web of Popularity, Achieved by Bullying” on the “Consider This” page.  This New York Times article explores a study done by The American Sociological Review and research done at the University of California, Davis.  The results are interesting because they say there needs to be a change in how we perceive both the victim and the bully.  

Students want to be part of the popular crowd, and some will go above and beyond to make that happen.  Robert Faris, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Davis says:  “What we think often is going on is that this is part of the way kids strive for status. Rather than going after the kids on the margins, they might be targeting kids who are rivals.”  The study explores the way high school students are going after other students, even peers who they claim to be friends with, who might threaten their own social standing.  Overall, the research proved about one third of the students he studied are involved in “aggressive behavior” which included physical violence, gossip  Dr. Faris states that students who are isolated and unpopular are still getting picked on, but they aren’t the main targets anymore.   “The overall rate of aggression seems to increase as status goes up. What it suggests is that a student thinks they get more benefit to going after somebody who is a rival.”

I think this is an important article on how bullying is changing over time.  Not only are bullies taking to the internet and engaging in many different technologies to make their peers feel bad about themselves, they can no longer be stereotyped as someone big and mean picking and harassing someone that is small and alone.  Popularity in middle-school and high-school can consume some people and now those are the people who are becoming the bullies.  I am interested to start learning how big a role the internet plays in facilitating their actions.