December 21, 2016

Michelle Bishop

Since the beginning of social media websites and the constantly changing technology that allows you to interact with people from all over the world through text, pictures, and videos, there has been an increasing number of cyber bullying attacks and cases in which people have felt personally victimized. Cyberbullying is the use of technology to hurt a person, typically by sending messages to scare, mock, or threaten someone. Studies show that even though it is very easy to escape cyber bullying, that many children and young adults have experienced this form of bullying and have been deeply affected by it. In a case study in 2014, it was reported that 25 percent of students have received repeated bullying on their cellphone and that 52 percent of students have been cyber bullied. Bullying can ,make someone feel alone, like no one is there to  help that person, and cyber bullying can damage someone’s outlook on life. Through the new social media sites being formed over the past ten years such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and the newest app named “After School,” children teens, and young adults now have the power to post whatever they want. These apps created for a light hearted page to share what you were feeling or doing has turned into an outlet to help destroy people’s lives. Some of these cases even end up in extreme depression, and sometimes suicide for these victims of this horrendous act. One example of teen suicide due to cyber bullying was the case of a 15 year old high school student named Audrie Pott. In 2012, this young woman had passed out at a party in which 2 boys stripped her of clothing, drew all over her body, and sexually assaulted her while she was unconscious. The week following that night, Audrie was bombarded with insults, being told that it was her fault that this happened to her. There was also both pictures taken and a video recorded of the boys doing all of these acts to her while she lay there passed out. After hearing about this Audrie decided that she didn’t want to live anymore and killed herself on the afternoon of September 12, 2012. This is sad example about how the power of cyber bullying can permanently damage someone’s way of thinking in a very short period of time. There are a number of suicides that were caused by the hazing a photo sharing that occurs all of the world wide web. This is a growing problem in our world that should be stopped. There is clearly no direct way to cease all bullying from occurring, but i believed that if parents were more attentive to their children, bully or victim, that they would be able to see the issues at hand and either help their child feel better or confront their child on why they think it’s right to treat another person like they don’t matter. This would greatly improve how children, teens, and adults interact with each other and hopefully cause them to be more considerate about how other people deal with things.