In today's world, everything is digitalized and this includes the way people communicate with each other. Social media networks like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are three of today's most popular social media services, each of which has amassed hundreds of millions of users over the course of just a few years. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay While most users of these social media networks tend to behave and use the resources they provide in the correct way, there are some who choose otherwise – with the intent or mindset of harming others – to use the network resources at their disposal to commit illicit acts. This illegal act is called cyberbullying. The act of cyberbullying is the intentional harm of an individual (usually a minor) through online social media and has started to become a serious problem for users themselves within online social media communities. It can happen to anyone at any time and can happen on any social media site. Examples of such behaviors include sending an indecent or inappropriate photo of an individual to other individuals with the intent of "spreading" the image into other individuals' media newsfeeds. so that they can see the image themselves, which would result in the humiliation of that individual, spread rumors, usually falsified, among other users of social media networks with the intention of spreading them to other individuals, threaten an individual by sending them messages textually vulgar with the intent to scare or harass them online with the intent to elicit a reaction from them, also known as trolling. In other cases, entire fake user profiles of an individual, including real photos of the victim, have been created by others with the sole intent of defaming the victim. According to the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), cyberbullying is believed to be a serious problem for young people and it is estimated that approximately half of all teenagers have been victims of cyberbullying in some form during adolescence. It has been calculated that the lowest record of cyberbullying occurred in 2013, although female students appear to be victims at higher rates than males. While the statistics for the NCPC have been calculated and are currently where they are, the Crimes Against Children Research Center (CCRC) believes that the NCPC's calculations and estimates are "exaggerated" and estimates that around 9% of teenagers across the country have been victims of cyberbullying at some point. In 2007, the CDCP identified cyberbullying as an emerging public health problem. Statistics provided by Pew Internet and American Life Project found that one-third of teens who use the Internet said they had been threatened and harassed online at some point, and they had also been victims of online rumors. In rare cases of online cyberbullying, teenagers commit suicide. It is also believed that there is a strong link between the event and the action. The event (cyberbullying) alone often does not lead to action (suicide), but the likelihood of attempting suicide increases when the adolescent is dealing with personal problems, stressful situations, or psychological vulnerabilities. In research, the Cyberbullying Research Center found that people who are victims of cyberbullying are almost twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who are not. In 2010, the Cyberbullying Research Center conducted a survey of a group of students between the ages of 11 and 18 who were members of social media networks. 20% of the students in the group said they had been victims of cyberbullyingand, among the same students in the group, another 20% reported having engaged in cyberbullying behavior at least once. The 10% of students in the group who had experienced cyberbullying incidents also said that they had both been victimized and had also played the role of the oppressor at least once. It is not entirely known why people choose to cyberbully others online via social media, but one reason may be the ability to remain anonymous while cyberbullying another. person. It is also believed that teenagers who are "popular" on social media tend to cyberbully other individuals simply because it makes them feel "powerful", or they do so as a means to remain popular and maintain their status on the social media network. low self-esteem or are dealing with other psychological problems such as depression may cyberbully others to help them deal with the personal problem as a means of alleviating it. Peer pressure could also play an important role in an act of cyberbullying: it is likely that a person who is committing cyberbullying himself is only doing so so that he can appear "cool" in the eyes of his peers and fit into that associated social category. Desensitization to others. Empathy is also another likely reason why a person cyberbullyes others: they cannot, or have difficulty, empathizing with people they have already victimized, so something as potentially devastating as cyberbullying to them could make them feel as if they weren't hurting anyone. , or that cyberbullying does not cause emotional or psychological harm to the person being victimized. As people cyberbully others for the benefit of remaining anonymous or simply believing it's "fun," cyberbullying is an increasingly threatening social phenomenon. media issue, although the popular social media services Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have cyberbullying prevention methods and dedicated pages listed on their websites so that their users can be informed and take necessary actions when/if the moment. Fortunately, these social media websites have organized anti-cyberbullying oriented groups for their users to engage in combating situations involving potential aspects of cyberbullying and essentially keeping cyberbullying to a minimum. There are also a number of dedicated cyberbullying prevention methods that social media services have in place for cyberbullying situations that do occur. Steps a social media user can take to prevent cyberbullying and potential harm to others include: “Blocking” the person who harasses or victimizes them, essentially cutting off all contact with that person and preventing them from viewing each other's content. Report cyberbullying to the website staff via a help request system so that the staff can address the issue themselves and most likely penalize the individual behind the cyberbullying. Spread the word of the cyberbully to other friends so that other individuals can be aware of the person's actions and most likely get the attention of the website staff so that the cyberbully can be penalized. Remove the cyberbully from your friends list (or "unfriend" them) so that the victim cannot see the cyberbully's content and send the cyberbully's messages to the message filtering system. Set the contents page to "private" so that only a select few people can see what's there - that way, potential cyberbullies can't roam freely around your user's page and see,.