Cyber-Bullying
Cyber-bullying is a problem sweeping the nation. It affects the bully, the victim, family, and friends. Cyber-bullying is caused when one person is cruel to another person for no apparent reason. Teen cyber-bullying has increased over the years, from 6% in 2000, to 85% today. Because technology is more enhanced than it was in 2000, people learned how to take advantage of technology. This has shocked many people, but who is to blame for the cyber-bullying except the bullies themselves? This pain makes people feel insignificant, weak, powerless and worthless, sometimes to the extent that they might want to kill themselves.
Cyber-bullying is a form of bullying that uses an electronic device to annoy, harass, threaten, target or embarrass a person. Online threatening, rude/crude texts, mean posts of any kind (on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), photos and pages that don’t get taken down even when the victim begs for them to remove it – all these fall under cyber-bullying. Posting personal videos or images can hurt someone, including oneself. Online actions deliberately meant to hurt someone’s feelings in one way or another can also be considered harassment – like intimidation, like rude comments that zoom in on someone’s gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or physical differences – these are in the harassment category. Whether it is done online or in person, this type of harassment can count as discrimination and is against the law in most states. This means that the authorities can get involved with it and the bullies can face severe punishments.
Psychological and emotional consequences of cyber-bullying are alike sometimes worse than real-life bullying. The difference is, real-life bullying often ends when school is dismissed. Cyber- bullying can happen anytime, and there is no escape. And, it’s getting even worse: about 43% of kids were, have been, or are currently being bullied online, and one out of four had it happen to them more than once. Indeed, 70% of people online report seeing frequent bullying, and over 80% of kids, tweens, and teens use a cell phone on a regular basis, making it the most common threshold for cyber bullying. 68% of teens agree that cyber- bullying is a serious problem on the rise and is growing, 81% of young citizens believe bullying online is easier to get away with than bullying in person, and 90% of young people who have seen social-media bullying say they have ignored it. 84% have seen others tell cyber bullies to stop, according to www.bullyingstatistics.org.
However, only 1 out of 10 victims will tell a parent or trusted adult of their mistreatment and the mistreatment. Close to 58% of victims admit someone has said mean or hurtful things to them online, and more than 4 out of 10 say it has happened to them more than once. Approximately 75% have visited a website criticizing another human being, and bullying targets are two to nine times more likely to think about committing suicide. Surprisingly, females are close to twice as likely as boys to be the victims and the offenders of cyber-bullying. Above half of the youths and teens have been bullied online, and close to the same number are cyber-bullies. More than one out of three adolescents have interacted with cyber-bullying and have been threatened. Over 25% of young people have been bullied repeatedly throughout their cell phone and Internet life, and well over half don’t tell their parents when cyber-bullying happens to them.
One day, I was playing on my favorite server in Minecraft and the first thing I saw after playing a game of Dragon Escape was, “JohnRay12, why are you such a hacker?” Then JohnRay12 said,” I didn’t hack, I’m just good at this game.” And the snappy comeback the cyber-bully had was, “The only reason you are good is because you spend all of your time online. Why don’t you get a life or die in a hole, you little ****” After that, JohnRay12 decided to log off because he was most likely hurt and offended. After he left, I said to the bully,” Why are you so mean to him?” He said,”Because he deserved it.”
Imagine if next week, you hop online to your favorite video game and you see someone being bullied or being a bully. You should remember that it can have serious effects and so you should speak up or do something about it. You should help by raising awareness for this epidemic, and if everyone learns about it, and acts to limit and extinguish it, perhaps someday there will be no such thing as cyber-bullying.