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Social Media
Social media are tools that are computer-mediated and they enable people to share, exchange, and create ideas, information, and pictures in virtual networks and communities (Sterberg 12). Social media has been of great importance in the world today since it has helped in ensuring that people get to communicate and interact wherever they are.
However, social media has become an avenue where people, bully, insult, and threaten others as well since they are not afraid of being punished. Cyber bullying can be described as the kind of bullying done through the electronic technology. Examples of electronic technologies are computers, cell phones, tablets, social media sites, and websites. Cyber bullying is done by sending text messages or emails that are mean, rumors that are sent through email or sent trough the sites of social networking, pictures that are embarrassing, and profiles that are fake. Cyber bullying has become very common today since most of the people that bully others do it anonymously thus it is very hard to locate them. They do it since they are aware that nothing can be done to them. Cyber bullying is different compared to being bullied in person. That is because cyber bullying often happens any time of the day or even night. It is experienced every day of the week and at times it goes on for a very long time. Messages used for cyber bullying are anonymously posted and they are quickly distributed to a large number of people. That makes it very difficult for the source to be traced thus the people that do it often go unpunished and that is the reason they often do it again and again.
Research shows that online harassment has become very common in the world today especially in the young adults. It has created a lot of challenges to the policy makers, researchers, law enforcement, and the advocates that believe the issue should be considered with a lot of seriousness. Little has been done regarding the online harassments and no one has the responsibility of monitoring the bad behaviors that are experienced online. Therefore, people always harass others through social media since they cannot be located easily. For example, people create fake profiles where they use identities belonging to other people. They end up posting offensive information, videos, and pictures. That is very bad since the wrong person goes through a lot of problems due to what has been posted since the person that did cannot be identified or even located. It is also through the social media sites that people end up posting lies about other people. That ends up ruining the reputation of the other person especially if the person is respectable in the society. The victim is forced to make a lot of effort in order to clear their names yet they have done nothing wrong. It has been happening for a very wrong time in the recent years. Those people that harass others using social media will not stop since nothing can be done to them. Locating a person who is anonymous is very difficult and sometimes very impossible since it is even hard to know where to start looking. Therefore, the people that harass others through social media take advantage of that situation since they know that they will go unpunished even after doing all that.
Around forty percent of the people that use the internet has been harassed though the social sites. Many people are insulted, embarrassed, threatened, stalked, and harassed sexually through the social sites. At times, the harassment is not severe where one is insulted or even embarrassed by others. However, sexual harassment, threats, and stalking are very severe since they tend to affect someone in one way or another. Most of the people that experience online harassment are the young people who are between eighteen to twenty nine years. They are often targeted by other people especially if they are not strong enough to defend themselves. In most cases, the men do not face the severe type of harassment since in most cases they are just insulted. However, most women suffer from severe online harassments since they are often harassed sexually using the social sites (Hunter 34). Those people that harass other do it over and over again anytime they want to do it. They do not mind about the people they hurt like that. At times, people are paid by others to spoil the reputation of other people or even hurt others. That makes one suffer a lot yet it happens for a long time since the people behind it cannot be located. Many internet users have become afraid of using the social sites since they are not aware of what to find there. The threats that they receive make them live in fear yet nothing can be done. Their lives have changed since they do not know who to trust anymore. The people that harass them are anonymous thus it is hard to identify the people to be trusted and those that should not be trusted.
Online harassments have a lot of effects especially to the people that are being bullied. One of them is that they feel powerless and vulnerable. That happens since they do not feel safe anymore. That is because the bullying can happen to them any time thus they are always insecure of what will happen next. They do not have a place where they can escape to since the bullies to not have to be present when bullying them. They also live in fear since their bullies are anonymous thus they do not know what they are being targeted for. Another effect is that they feel humiliates and exposed. Since the bullying happens in a cyber space, it often feels to be permanent. Once something embarrassing gets out, it will always be there and people will know about it. One feels very humiliated especially if the embarrassing information has reached a large number of people. Another effect is that they become very isolated since they are always feeling lonely. For example, in a situation where teens are cyber bullied, they are excluded by their friends in the schools especially if something embarrassing about the kid has been leaked. When the kids lose more friends, the bullying can be more intense since the bullies know that the kid is vulnerable (Sternberg 34). When kids are cyber bullies, they often start having disinterest in life. That is because, with the online bullying, it becomes very difficult for them to relate to other people since they are not aware who is doing it to them. Therefore, life starts feeling meaningless and hopeless to them. They do not have interest in the things that they used to do any more. In most cases, they end up becoming depressed. When the cyber bullying becomes intense for students, their grades start falling and they can no longer perform as they used to. That happens since they find it very difficult to concentrate in class and they are always thinking about what is happening to them. They also lose interest in going to school since they do not know who is behind the bullying. Some kids start complaining about some minor illnesses. At times, they do it as a pretense to help them avoid going to school. In most cases, these children have cuts and bruises that they cannot explain to their parents how they got them.
Online bullying is very wrong, and it should be stopped at all cost. It is because it causes suffering to very many people, and it may affect their future as well because most of the children that are bullied at their young age tend to become very aggressive at their old age. However, most of the bullies bully other people since it makes them happy and look superior to their teens (Berlatsky 24). They also do it since they know that nothing can be done to them since they usually do it anonymously. They cannot be punished as well thus that motivates them to do it over and over again. At times they earn from bullying others using the social sites. That has made the internet a very unsafe place and many people do not believe everything they see on the social media since the social media has become a place where rumors and reputations are soiled.
There are various ways through which cyber bullying can be prevented. One of them is ensuring that they do not get to reply to the spam emails that are sent to them. Therefore, when one receives an advertisement that is spammed, they should ensure that they do not get to take the sender’s offer. Replying to the span message confirms another person to access one’s email account. One should also ensure that they get to keep their personal presences and their work separate from each other. In a situation where one has an email account for work purposes, they have to ensure that they keep it for work purposes only. At times, the work account has to be accessed by the other employees thus one should ensure that they get to keep their private emails separately. That also ensures that one is able to freely communicate with their contacts without having to worry that their colleagues will access their private conversations. One should also ensure that they get to keep their email account clean. Therefore, one ensures that they get to use a different email address when they are mailing to the public, for example, when advertising and sending emails to parties that are not known. With that, one gets to keep their private information private thus it cannot be accessed by other people. The government should also establish a policy of dealing with cyber bullying. That is because the cyber bullies do it since they are aware that nothing can be done by the government to stop it. Cyber bullying can reduce at a very high rate in a situation where the government steps in.
Works Cited
Berlatsky, Noah. Netiquette and Online Ethics. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2013. Print.
Clarke, Amanda. Social Media. Ottawa: Library of Parliament, 2010. Print.
Hunter, Nick. Cyber Bullying. Chicago, Ill.: Heinemann Library, 2012. Print.
Sternberg, Janet. Misbehavior in Cyber Places: The Regulation of Online Conduct in Virtual Communities on the Internet. Lanham, Md.: U of America, 2012. Print.