Cyberbullying has become much more prevalent with the uprising of
social media in the past few years. Cyberbullying is defined as willful and repeated
harm through the use of any technology. We often hear about how regular
bullying can cause a world of hurt for kids, but cyberbullying can be worse,
much worse. Since everyone has access to the internet (well, most everyone)
things that are posted online are for the world to see and even when hateful
posts are removed, they most likely are not gone due to the public's ability to
screenshot and save pages. "Regular" bullying is bad enough for
students to go through, as it can ruin the schooling experience for those that
are bullied, but cyber bullying takes it to a whole new level. When you post
things on the internet, you can never really get rid of them and when you make
attacks at specific people, those hateful attacks an follow them for the rest
of their life and quite possibly ruin their life.
There are so many awful stories about cyberbullying causing significant
harm, and one very recent story I found is a case from San Jose in which a
young lady who was being cyber bullied committed suicide. (San
Jose Suicide Trial Puts Cyber Bullying in Focus) This type of tragedy
occurs way more than it ever should.
Audrie Pott's story is unique in the regard that just the threat
of online harassment was enough for her to want to end her life. This tragedy
reminded me of and was fairly similar to the issues that have been going on at
our campus involving KDR. Both situations involved posting pictures of girls in
illegal situations online without consent. And, unfortunately, in the case of
Audrie Pott, knowing that people might see those pictures was all it took to
ruin her life. It just goes to show that
these types of problems are worldwide and need to be stopped.
The internet is a very useful resource but can be used in harmful
ways. There have been many online sources like, cyberbullying.gov that are used
to educate people on the matter of cyberbullying and hopefully teach people how
to stop it in its tracks.
Kids think that posting harmful things about other kids for fun or
to make them popular but they don’t realize the detrimental affects their
actions can have. Schools need to continue in the attempt to stop bullying and
incorporate them into their curriculum.
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