Curbing Cyberbullying among Teenagers Essay

Cyberbullying may result in suicide for many teenagers as they are more vulnerable due to lack of maturity. Many adolescents find themselves trapped in this menace of cyberbullying. Also, it is propagated by peer pressure, adventure seeking, reward sensitivity, lack of rational decision making, impulse control cognitive processing and long-term planning. However, it may also happen accidentally where it may be difficult to distinguish a sender’s tone of the texts, emails or online posts. Cyberbullying has numerous negative effects on the youth. Even though cyberbullying does not necessarily happen within the school compounds, teenagers tend to confide to school officials than their parents (Hoff & Mitchell, 2009). Therefore, the government should ensure that cyberbullying information and lessons are included in the curriculum. Moreover, in the fight against cyberbullying, the government should be able to come up with civil, legislative and criminal remedies dealing with the offense.

Most authorities argue that it is not appropriate to impose criminal law to misbehavior conducted by school children. The government needs to come up with tort law features that will make it easy for victims to attain a civil remedy. The presence of laws will enforce adherence to school rules as well as the cyberbullying regulations put forward. With this, there will be very few or none cases of cyberbullying among teenagers. Furthermore, the government should come together with social media owners to put some form of restrictions for underage users. They should make it clear that people who are underage should not possess social media accounts. In addition, the internet providers should device stringent online privacy settings and allow users to change their e-mail addresses and usernames to protect them from online bullying.

In curbing cyberbullying with the suggested aforementioned policies, the government can put up the following follow up plans to ensure that they are working effectively and efficiently. Concerning the first mentioned policy, the government can embark on a follow up plan of providing funds to schools in order to carry out the teachings and lessons about cyberbullying. Just like any other project, cyberbullying prevention requires enough money to support the endeavor (National Crime Prevention Council, 2017). Also, the government can ensure that they provide adequate counselors, lawyers and other personnel that would deal with cyberbullying cases involving school-going teenagers. This is very crucial in ensuring that the matter is tackled with the importance that it deserves. It is the worst form of bullying since it reaches a wider audience (Rice et al.

Also, it has huge effects on the mental health of the victims whereby most of them undergo stressful moments, anxiety or depression and end up committing suicide. The government needs to take strict measures to curb the menace. It should put strict laws and regulations governing social media sites as well as school rules. Also, they should think of reducing the costs and time for attending court cases regarding cyberbullying.  L. Hong, J.  S. Cyberbullying prevention and intervention efforts: Current knowledge and future directions.  The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 62(6), 374-380. Giumetti, G.  W. Schroeder, A.  N. Lattanner, M. Padgett, S. Roden, J. Cyberbullying: Resources for intervention and prevention.  Universal Journal of Educational Research, 1(3), 133-145. Retrieved from DOI: 10. doi:10. ajph. Smit, D.  M. Cyberbullying in South African and American schools: A legal comparative study.