Cyber bullying – what causes a person to become a bully?
This attached article is about bullies bullying authors via Amazon book reviews as well as on the “GoodReads” book review social media site. You might want to read it before reading the rest of this posting, in order to better understand where I’m coming from.
I wonder if their spouses or significant others know that they do this? I wonder if their friends know they do this? I wonder, if they have children, if their children know about this behavior of their dad’s (or mom’s)?
[i was about to say, I think this is a male behavior thing, but I’ve also seen some women who have also done this – but, I tend to think it’s mostly guys that do the majority of cyber-bullying.]
If any of the above people know, do they speak up to the bully, or are they in agreement with the bully that this type of behavior “doesn’t hurt anyone”, or do these people just say, “oh, that’s just dad (Mom; my sister; John;), and they’re just kidding around, no harm done”??
What causes these people to do this? What makes them think it’s an “ok” thing to do?
Did they get this animosity and belligerent behavior from their own parents, or from their teachers, their friends, or siblings?
Where does the mentality come from that says, “huh, I think I’ll go look at some books on Amazon and decide to write my abusive thoughts about the author, I’m sure everyone will want to read my them”?
How can we fix this?
How do we teach our friends, colleagues, siblings, and children this is not acceptable?
What makes people do this – for the attention? Does it make them “feel good imside”? Do they really get “pleasure” from writing disturbing comments?
A lot of questions, I know. I don’t know of any solution – the article talks about ways to deal with the abusive comments/reviews, but it’s after the fact. We somehow need to teach our children this type of behavior is unacceptable, before they start doing this, not after.
Or, is it already too late??
I recently read a comment somewhere about teaching/learning social media etiquette – I thought they were kidding at first, but, then I reflected on it afterwards, and I finally “got it”. I think this now needs to be taught early on – in elementary school, perhaps.
Your opinions, feedback, comments, further questions are welcomed.
