Cyber Bullying during the Pandemic

Devesh Bahel 03/04/24

Introduction

I chose the article about cyber bullying during the pandemic. The question is what is cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is the use of technology to harass or make fun of someone. Threatening someone through the use of technology is also identified as another form of bullying but through the use of technology. This article talks about the pandemic and how when the pandemic happened classes got moved from in person to virtual. As a result cyberbullying happened. The cases of cyberbullying went up since the change.

Principles of Science

In the article I think the three principles that will fit into this article are Determinism, Ethical Neutrality, and Parsimony. Determinism means where behavior is caused based on events that happened. Ethical Neutrality means where scientists must adhere to ethical standards when they conduct their research. Parsimony means that scientists should keep their levels of explanation simple and keeping their explanations simple they can conduct their research based on what they came up with. So let’s talk about how these principles fit into the article. Determinism was used in the article because as we know it means behavior caused by events and in the article classes were moved from in person to virtual and because of that event cyber bullying happened. Ethical Neutrality was used because scientists were testing to see what would happen if they keep the classes online and in person. Parsimony was used because scientists were keeping it simple by looking at the numbers when classes were in person and when classes were online.

Hypothesis

As stated in the article, research has shown that Some of the research that has been conducted suggests that a considerable proportion of undergraduate students have their first cyberbullying experiences during college, illustrating the necessity for cyberbullying research in postsecondary education settings (Kowalski et al., 2012; Varghese & Pistole, 2017). They did research on the cases before and during the pandemic on young adults and the cases went up when the pandemic hit.

Research Methods and Analysis

Some research methods that were used for research on cyber bullying because of the pandemic was the use of social media and what happens when the use of social media was used. According to the article the use of social media caused increased cases of cyberbullying. Past research further demonstrates a relationship between social media usage and perceived social isolation, colloquially referred to as loneliness. During the pandemic, social media consumption has been associated with greater feelings of loneliness (Ma et al., 2020; Lisitsa et al., 2020). It was assumed that individuals potentially engage more in cyberbullying if they use social media and feel socially isolated. This is an emerging area of study and essential considering the high levels of loneliness and social media usage among young adults even in pre-pandemic times (Varghese & Pistole, 2017).

Concepts that were used from class

Some concepts that were used from the class towards this article was powerpoint three. In powerpoint three it talks about some strategies with social science research methods. These methods that are given in the powerpoint are related to this article. Some methods are surveys, experiments, and different types of research. One method that was used in this article was experiments. Scientists experimented with surveys and experiments so that they can see how cyberbullying would be when virtual and when in person.

Groups and Studies to Society

One specific group that was affected by cyberbullying was young adults and kids. This is the group that was greatly affected by cyberbullying. The article says that participants between the age of 15 and 25 years old were affected by cyberbullying. Participants who get bullied are usually affected by loneliness which causes them to get onto electronic devices. In the society for cyber bullying to stop and for people to be aware of it there are usually presentations given for cyber bullying to make you aware of it and to tell you what to do if you are one of the people who get bullied over the internet.