How communication technology has influenced aggressive attitude in the society?

In new era, people are communicated through computer, hand phone, or social media such as email, Facebook, Twitter and others that people using by internet nowadays. Therefore, social media is one of the communication technologies among the people and society. People think that it is more convenient and efficient to interact with one another. Communication technology has influenced people into different kind of social behavior which can be positive and negative way in the society. It will also causes the people change their attitude, opinion and perception through their mindset.

Aggressive may be applied to a specific behavior such as killing. It can cause another injury or creating destruction, attacking another, or simply engaging in fighting. Communication technology has influenced people into aggressive attitude because of the social media and with so many technology devices exist in the world. Aggressive attitude is one of the social behaviors that cause physical or emotional harm and threaten to other people. Aggressive attitude is a big problem because it will occur frequently or in a pattern of people. Generally, aggressive attitude started from people who are inability to control his or her behavior.

Besides, aggressive attitude has been affected people in many ways. In the past, these actions could be better controlled because of people were limited to face-to-face interactions (Richard Donegan, n.d., p. 33). However, the communication technology has increasing among the public year by year in the society. People will changed their attitude and behavior with the advancement of technology. In recent years, people has conflict between each other has become more dangerous and harder to control their attitude because of the communication technology appear among the society. For instance, the teenagers are learning many types of behavior from communication technology such as television, internet, social media and so on. Besides that, people nowadays are more direct and straight forward that they could not control their attitude such as bad-tempered and easily to get conflict with another when they felt angry. Not only that, it will cause to damage the relationship between the people especially their friends and family.

However, aggressive attitude has used communication technology such as social media that can cause cyber-bullying. Cyber-bullying can be defined as an aggressive attitude among people because that is intended to hurt someone in psychological, physical stress and emotional form (Olweus, 2012). Cell phones, social media sites, chat rooms, and other forms of technology have allowed bullying to expand into cyberspace. Cyber-bullying is one of the new forms of abuse. Cyber-bullying is one of the aggressive bullying via social media such as blogging, social networking websites, emails, instant messengers, and web-forums are ways that today’s technologically savvy culture can communicate with others all over the world (Christopher P. Barlett & Douglas A. Gentile, 2012).

It defined as an aggressive intentional act carried out by a group or individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time against a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself (Smith et al., 2008, p. 376). For example, people are using digital technology that involves sending those threatening messages through emails, phone calls, or social media, or sexual harassment against someone's life, spreading rumors, sharing another person’s private things and so on. This kind of cyber-bullying will harm others mentally or emotionally. As compared to traditional bullying, the aggressor is identified, sarcasm is apparent, and the physical pains of the victims are clear.

Cyber-bullying is a very serious matter. For example, students have taken their own lives because they felt pressured, embarrassed and felt they had no other alternatives to escape from the problem they face. With so many technology devices available and the cyber world will lead the people become out of control to do anything. Other than that, the researcher has found out that boys are more likely to be cyber bullies, and girls are more likely to be victims (Wang et al., 2009). Since new media and cell phones are harder to control and monitor, parents need to take preventive action that can help minimize the effects of cyber-bullying on their children. In order to prevent cyber-bullying, parents must be actively involved in their children’s cyber lives.

There is much kind of cyber-bullying cases that happened in Malaysia. Several cyber-bullying cases which took place in 2014 are not just spreading on social media; it also hit national news headlines. One of the cases of cyber-bullying in Malaysia was Sheena Liam who is a local model of Malaysian Chinese descent and the winner of Asia's Next Top Model. After clinching the coveted ‘Asia’s Next Top Model’ title, local model Sheena Liam was thrown in to the gutter after she unceremoniously fell victim of cyber-bullying. During the show’s showdown, Sheena Liam beat two other contestants from the Philippines. Naturally, her fans were felt confused. They posted to the Instagram to criticize Sheena Liam and comment that she was not the deserving winner. For the record, the fans walked the extra mile to lambast her, right down to using profanity words in their comments.

Any teenagers today was born in a world where the technology devices and social networks make up a part of their daily life, it is hard for them to imagine a world with no internet, no digital camera, no Facebook or no smartphone. The new communication technology made up their daily life more interesting and happiness. It will make the people be presumptuous and they will not think about the consequences before they done wrongly. In addition, social media allow people to be more creative as it gives the users freedom to produce content that they share with their peers. People nowadays like to use social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Wechat to share their status, photos and chat with others through social media. Yet, most parents probably still don’t even have Facebook accounts or don’t understand how their children use them. Parents and children share different values when it comes to personal privacy and information sharing. The teenagers nowadays are having cameras all around, taking photos on a moment notice and sharing them with their friends. Most parents don’t even know how to turn on the camera on their phone properly, and have even less knowledge on how to transfer the photos to a social network like Facebook and others. Therefore, there are no any cases that happened cyber-bullying in the past years.

As a conclusion, we must stop aggressive attitude in our social lives because it affects to develop community or country and it will change the people’s mind in different way. We should behave our attitude in positive way but not in negative way. Prevention in aggressive behavior is the best hope and we have to improve the social lives of children and adults in the next generation.

References:

Aggressive Behavior | Definition & Patient Education. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.healthline.com/health/aggressive-behavior#Overview1

Barlett, C. P., & Gentile, D. A. (2012). Attacking Others Online: The Formation of Cyberbullying in Late Adolescence.

Cyberbullying on the rise in 2014 Who is responsible for the phenomenon | Astro Awani. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://english.astroawani.com/before-2015/cyberbullying-rise-2014-who-responsible-phenomenon-50681

Grigg, D. W. (n.d.). Cyber-Aggression: Definition and Concept of Cyberbullying.

Dennen, J. M. G. (1980). Problems in the Concepts and Definitions of Aggression, Violence, and some related Terms.

Donegan, R. (n.d.). Bullying and Cyberbullying.

Social Media and Aggressive Behavior: Case Study Analysis on Cyberbullying Among Adolescents | at defickry. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://defickry.com/2015/03/01/social-media-and-aggressive-behavior-case-study-analysis-on-cyberbullying-among-adolescents/