Abstract:

Cyber bulling is becoming a grave problem all around the world. It is the use of different forms of
information technology to blackmail, manipulate and harass the victims to the extent that they go into
severe state of depression and feel completely useless and lonely. The most common way used for this is
instant messaging. One perspective towards this is that cyber bulling is becoming prevalent as student
spends a greater amount of time on social media that keeps them connected to different people.

KEY WORDS: Cyberbullying, Awareness, Bully.

Problem statement
The reason behind conducting this research is to find out the impact on students academic performance
due to the grave problems that arises by the existence and prevalence of cyberbullying in recent times.

Bullying, regardless of whether it is traditional bullying or cyberbullying, causes significant emotional

Background of Cyberbullying:
Every human being has a desire to survive and in that concern it has to compete for resources with other
humans. Survival is instinctual and basic among all human beings they also aim to accumulate wealth
which defines their status in society. Accumulation of wealth and status is related specifically with rivalry
in humans. There has been a steady drive to out-perform others and beat them in this race. This is an
instilled feature of humans which has given path to different ways of surpassing others such as bullying.

Prior to 2002, no research existed on the topic of cyber-bullying (Hinduja, 2012)

Bullying has existed since decades. However with the rapid development of technology and the
emergence of social media has led to its development. The devices are cheap and so accessible to
almost everybody these days. According to a research agree students who are involved in excessive
usage of electronic media and are more active online are more prone to be cyberbullied (Accordino,
2011). Therefore people may use it for inappropriate purposes and even crimes. Many teens
especially might rent these devices. Cyberbullying is mainly common in teens that is a deliberate
aggression that tends to treat people that are less powerful or not influential. This deliberate action
is often rational and performed majorly for pleasure rather than anger. It is also a result of peer
pressure and an individual’s determination that they can do something like this. It is mainly verbal
aggression rather than physical because it’s happening through devices. Harsh and even vulgar
language and emoticons are used.

Cyberbullying involves the use of information and communication technologies to cause harm to
others. The continuous evolvement in the world of technology has provided us with smart phones
through which we broadcast our life’s to our friends, family and associates online, teenagers are
influenced the most and are using Social Networking Sites (SNS). There has been a rapid growth
in the cyber space since 2009 and is fast becoming a communication hub. After 2012 smart phones
like IPhone and android started becoming very common and shifted all communication channels
like conventional text messages and calls to online text messaging and online calls (VoIP). All
these online mediums to communicate have become very risky for the teenage generation as they
are prone to sharing everything online that can be easily misused. ‘Bullying’ is usually defined as
continuous act of aggression towards a person who cannot defend himself from the bully (Slonje,
2008)

Cyberbullying happens because of power imbalance and the ones more influential tend to
degrade the less fortunate ones. The most common ways of cyberbullying include text messages,
email, social websites like Facebook, instagram and etc. It causes distress to pupils however the
impact is comparatively less because there is no face to face impact. Research indicates that one
in four teenagers have experienced some form of cyber-bullying (Hinduja, 2012)
The main target are women who are harassed and threatened through internet and impelled to
Take drastic measures. Hundreds of incidents have been reported when victims have allegedly
suicide due to fear of bad name. The bully’s aim is to gain confidence and power as they lack it
in person so they act through using devices or it is also done for enjoyment and to cure boredom.

Very few people know about this new form bullying compared to the traditional face-to-face
bullying behavior that existed before (Bauman, 2010) However girls are found to use
cyberbullying to get over grudges as boys solve their matters then and there however girls choose
to hold grudges. Some bullies are tend to be popular amongst their friends but during this activity
they lack academic performance because they are indulged in power and revenge. (Wei, 2011)
Cyberbullying includes verbal aggression as mentioned before use of offensive language taunting
and insulting the victim. It also includes outage of personal or confidential information that may
lead to disparity between individuals. Moreover heated arguments and use of offensive language
of public forums also conclude to cyberbullying. It also results in the victim believing that there is
no solution to the problem which may lead to anxiety stress and depression. The individual may
neglect work and family and also contemplate the possibility to suicide. Cyberbullying has
flourished over email as it has emerged as a great media for communication over a few years
Chat rooms are another forum for cyber bullying where an individual is usually insulted and
Discriminated. Social website especially Facebook has been reportedly been used for bullying.
People engage in cyberbullying, like all kinds of bullying because of depression anxiety
And insecurities. It is due to emotional psychological and physical stress that results in aggression.
People being bullied have a higher risk of indulging in depression and anxiety moreover victims
might not seek help but keep their problems to themselves. The victim may only have one solution
to the problem and that is to block the bully as a preventive measure rather than curative measure
by reporting the bully. Cyberbullying may happen because it appeals teens and it appears as a way
of being popular and staying popular by hurting other. It may make them feel powerful by making
others feel weak and victimizing them. Circulating nasty stories or pictures of a person, to expose
them. Many times the pictures or rumors spread are untrue and are just to annoy and cause misery
to another. Sometimes these pictures are edited and made very different from what they really are.
With cyber bullying people cannot maintain personal lives and their stories, which may very well
be untrue are spread like wildfire. The person who is targeted then spends their time, trying to
justify themselves and are ashamed and embarrassed. We as inhabitants of this planet have a
responsibility to care for the welfare of people. Now let us look at where this problem stems from.
It is because of a survival instinct present in us that leads to competition. It really just starts from
the moment a child enters school. They are pressurized to be the best they can and prove
themselves as high achievers. Some work at improving themselves and bettering themselves,
whereas others aim to think of tactics which will make their life easier and with which they can
obtain their goals. The cool and popular children then target the average child and pressurize them
into completing their work and performing for them school related tasks. This therefore leads to
cyber bullying which can have drastic effects if not dealt with urgently. Therefore awareness about
this aspect is very much necessary in order to create a healthy environment.
Additionally, research indicates that a broken family relationship, despite of gender or sexuality,
Is a risk factor for becoming a victim of cyber-bullying (Brighi, 2012)

Its impact on Students:

The kids who are becoming the victim of cyberbullying tend to be disheartened, upset and demotivated.
They are usually also not socially interactive and do not have friends. This makes their school life
unsatisfying which is why they start avoiding school which will directly or indirectly have an effect on
their studies, interest in education and also the results (Mishna, 2003)

Attendance:

Many results of researches shoe that cyberbullying is related to students going to school and their
regularity. It had has caused increased absenteeism. (Patchin, Bullies move beyond the schoolyard: A
preliminary look at, 2006).Mostly the victims of cyberbullying were hesitant in going to school (Katzer,
2009).The students who were bullied were found scared going to the school (Vargas, 2009)

Academic performance

According to survey there is a link between the results of students and cyberbullying. After a detailed
survey conducted on students which was based on behaviors related to cyberbullying, researchers found
out that majority of the students got a bad grade when being cyberbullied and some of them also cheated
in their tests to pass as they might not be able to concentrate on studies (Patchin, Offline consequences of
online victimization: School violence and delinquency, 2007)

Objectives
 This study sets out to investigate the disadvantages that are caused by cyberbullying on
adolescents
 The objective is to determine the extent of impact on academic performance of students caused
by cyberbullying
 The emphasis will be given on the information students have about cyberbullying and their
behavior towards reporting it.
 To find out the different ways used by bullies to harm the victim.

Research design
A formal, objective, systematic process is designed for obtaining quantifiable information about the
students of Karachi. The results will be based on larger sample sizes that is 384 that are representative of
the population. The questionnaire has been adopted and modified from various articles and journals and 5
point likert scale has also been used.

Research limitations
There would be some practical constraints as this paper would not be to provide comprehensive view of
cyberbullying faced by students living all over Pakistan as we can only gather data from the students
living in Karachi. It can also not cover all the colleges of Karachi and its students. Therefore the research
is only limited to a small sample size moreover we are also constrained by the time for the research.

Bibliography
Accordino, D. &. (2011). An exploratory study of face-to-face and cyber-bullying. American Secondary
Education, 14-30.
Bauman, S. (2010). Cyber-bullying in a rural intermediate school: An exploratory study. Journal of Early
Adolescence,, 803-833.

Brighi, A. G. (2012). Predictors of victimisation across direct bullying, indirect bullying and cyber-bullying.
Emotional & Behavioural Difficulties, 375-388.

Hinduja, S. &. (2012). Cyber-bullying: Neither an epidemic nor a rarity. European Journal of
Developmental Psychology, 539-543.

Katzer, C. F. (2009). Cyberbullying: Who are the victims? A. Journal of Media Psychology,, 25-36.

Michaud, P. A. (2009). Editorial bullying: We need to increase our efforts and broaden. Journal of
Adolescent Health, 323-325.

Mishna, F. (2003). Learning disabilities and bullying. Journal of Learning Disabilities,, 336-347.

Patchin, J. W. (2006). Bullies move beyond the schoolyard: A preliminary look at. Youth Violence and
Juvenile Justice,4, 148-169.

Patchin, J. W. (2007). Offline consequences of online victimization: School violence and delinquency.
Journal of School Violence, 89-112.

Slonje, R. &. (2008). Cyberbullying: Another main type of bullying? . Scandanavian Journal of Psychology,
147-154.

Vargas, K. H. (2009). Urban middle school students’ perceptions of bullying, cyberbullying, and school
safety. Journal of School Violence,, 159-176.

Wei, H. &. (2011). The moderating effect of Machiavellianism on the relationships. School Psychology
International, 345-363.