Tuesday, September 4, 2018

My Thoughts On Cyber-bullying



With the development of the internet and social media people have taken new ways to bully others. This ranges from face-to-face, behind the other person back, through texts, and through the internet. Cyber-bullying is an increasing issue that is doesn't really have any limits on it, so it allows others to have the opportunity to also push your limits online. So, why not just grow thicker skin?

The main issue here is that cyber-bullying revolves around other peers that the person already knows instead of a random entity on the internet. At this point it becomes difficult to just grow thicker skin as it normally transitions to face-to-face bullying and behind the persons back. There are opportunities to at least halt the rate at which the person is being bullied online by just blocking the bully but that stops once the person creates another account, etc. The main way to stop it for a long time though is setting your social media accounts to private which allows you to control what you see, and it usually helps unless you add everyone that sends you a friend request.

For kids that are in middle school or below that are experiencing cyber-bullying it’s always advised for them to get off social media but it’s not any different from going to school in the morning as they’ll just get confronted there. Schools always have a no tolerance for bullying rule but that is never enforced, and I know from personal experience. Just from the way that the constitution sits and the laws that are in place right now there is a gray area for cyber-bullying.

Personally, I’ve never dealt with cyber-bullying from people I know. It’s always been from “trolls” on the games that I play, and I normally just turn off the console or play a different game. I’ve also been that “troll” but from what I’ve seen from the games that I do play everyone does it and no one takes it seriously. Most of the things have just turned into memes now, which is the way our generation is turning offensive things into funny things.  Overall, cyber-bullying is a gray area because you never know who you’re really talking to on the internet, if it’s a stranger block them or play a different game, if it’s someone you know you can try to block them but if they press further report it to the police but then you also have the constitution and other laws that kind of protect it.