Article Review Of Self-Esteem And Their Impacts On Cyberbullying Among Young Adults

This article is about the self-esteem and their impacts on cyberbullying among young adults that will diverse the emotional responses by the victims, cyber bullies and bystanders. The author has defined that the cyberbullying is one of the abusive intentional acts that involve by the group or individual know that they cannot be defeat against time especially the victims of cyberbullying that they targeted or have a bad intention to make the victim felts embarrassed and took for revenge. Cyberbullying is affected a bad experience of the victims or bystanders especially on psychologically that it will be haunted them on their past experiences that causes of highly anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. Besides, an adolescence did not have the emotional strength to handle compared to the teenagers which is young adults. Before this, the author had made a previous studied on investigating the psychosocial impacts of self-esteem and empathy generally on cyberbullying problems in the Malaysia been conducted. For instance, self-esteem is defined as expressing approval or unapproved attitude toward the self or self-worth on overall in individually. Self-esteem levels at the high and low ends of the wavelength can be dangerously, so ideally, it's best to strike a balance somewhere in the middle. A realistic yet positive view of yourself is generally considered the ideal. High self-esteem is often associated with people who are more assertive, pleased, and self-respecting, whereas people with low self-esteem are anxious, lack confidence, and self-critical. Self-esteem is also deemed as an important predictor of personal and social well-being. Self-esteem and victimization can be related that have been reported in cyberbullying research as well, however the findings are inconsistent. For instance, a high number of studies reported that victims tend to display lower self-esteem. However, some researchers reported low self-esteem amongst both perpetrators and compared to those that were not involved. Interestingly, studies particularly investigating older companion such as university students are insufficient, with results indicating no significant relationships between self-esteem and victimization. Individuals who score high on self-esteem are tends to be more assertive and self-respecting therefore, one can hypothesize that such individuals would react positively to a cyberbullying incident. Differently, a low self-esteemed person may be intimidated to react to a cyberbullying incident, and thus possibly resulting in the victim having low or no support at all in defending their self. This is a findings of victim experiences of cyberbullying in Malaysia.

Next, empathy is the experience of understanding other person’s experiences and feel the situation what the other people faced. Empathy also an action helping behaviors that come from within, rather than being forced, so that we behave in a sympathy manner. As a society, it may seem at times that we are becoming more individualistic and self-centred which is independent of outside force or influence. Empathy has been shown to be a valid predictor of cyberbullying perpetration as well, with cyberbullies being less empathic and affective compared to those who do not engage in such behaviors. Another study focusing on college students found lower empathy toward cyber victims predicted more favorable attitudes toward cyberbullying perpetration, and more favorable attitudes toward cyberbullying predicted higher intentions to cyberbully. Empathy also influences the likelihood that online bystanders will become involved in cyberbullying. For example, a more empathic individual may alter the result and react to a cyberbullying incident, either by defending the victim or warning the bully. In Malaysia, mostly the cyberbullying is reported from the adolescents and the adults be a victim causing by cyberbullying. This cyberbullying is not common things even in other country also have the issues and cases that very bad affects among the victims. There is a related law that can be taken by an action on cyberbullying toward the cyberbullies which is Computer Crimes Act 1997 that enacted to provide for offences relating to the misuse of computers and countering the threats and abuse of cybercrimes. The mainly applies when an offender wrongfully accesses victim's profiles and change their things without their permission to intentionally making harass and embarrass their victims. Next, is Communication and Multimedia Act improper use of network facilities or network services. Under this section, any other communication which sounds obscene, indecent, is false, menacing or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person commits an offence. For Malaysians, can lodge report to Cyber999 or SKMM. Besides, despite the prevalence of cyberbullying among young adults, no significant relationships were found between self-esteem and empathy for cyberbullying, victimization and bystander behavior, hence suggesting that psychological features do not predict such incidents among individuals with high scores of self-esteem and empathy. Nevertheless, the study showed that individuals with higher self-esteem tend to report victimization more, and tend to defend the victims as well.

For the conclusion, this article is concern on tending to causes bad effects of cyberbullying on social and psychological well-being of young adults. In particular, the study investigated the psychological features, namely, self-esteem and empathy and their impacts on cyber bullies, victims and bystanders. It also looks into the relationships between these features with the actions was identified among young adults as perpetrators, victims and also bystanders, and thus, supporting previous studies with similar. The fact that cyberbullying still exists after the schooling years is a cause taken and emotional responses experienced after a cyberbullying incident. Self-esteem and empathy cannot be predicting cyberbullying, victimization and bystander behavior. However, self-esteem was found to be significantly related to the victims feeling angry, and reporting an incident. Similar observations were noted for bystanders whereby self-esteem was significantly related to them feeling angry, sad, pity for the victim and defending the victim. Looking specifically at the actions taken, it is encouraging to note that individuals with high self-esteem tend to report a cyberbullying incident more for example as a victim and tend to deliberately stand up for a victim when they are a witness to a cyberbullying incident. No significant results were found for the bullies. Additionally, no relationship was found between empathy and the emotional experience and reactions within the sample taken in this study.