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.