CyberBullying - A New Leash of Life Thereafter

The increase in the use of technology in today's world has resulted in development of new applications and softwares that could be used for the wellbeing of human kind. However, there is another side in the misuse of technology by nerds. They in pursuit of knowledge and wealth, develop technological applications and softwares for teasing, for fun and for stealing other’s time, knowledge and wealth. All these activities could be grouped as cyberbullying. This has necessitated the need to create awareness against cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying impacts the life of an individual, their family, society and their work life. As an individual, this is very difficult to manage emotions to overcome the cyberbully leading to frustration and affecting the normal work life of the individual. Performance of individuals at work decreases with increasing impact of cyberbullying. Family members who may not be aware and understand cyberbullying will express varying emotions and are prone to fall prey to the temptations of cyberbullies leading to misconceptions and disengagement in family life. This in turn affects the individual leading to disconnected social life like social isolation.

Cyberbullying is a punishable offence across the globe. While this is not legally acceptable as is affecting the normal life of the individual harming them; cyberbully could also lead to criminal activities like personal identity theft of passwords and bank balance. Cyberbully is also against human ethics as is violating the privacy of the individual and disrespecting their emotions by not gaining consent from the concerned individual who are targeted. When a cyber-activity is harming the individual and one's well-being in the society, then cyberbullying turns socially unacceptable as well.

Thus awareness is necessitated to create awareness amongst public from falling prey to cyberbullying and to prevent them from becoming cyberbullies due to ignorance. Owing to the the pacing speed in technological developments the craving for need of power, lust and money, thus increases the chance of cybercrimes and cyberbullies. Cyberbullying thus has the potential to turn into the buzz word in cybercrimes.

PS: This was a short essay prepared for an online course of academic writing from University of Reading, UK