The Internet Makes It Easier To Bully
The internet is a wonderful invention in that it allows people to do so many things. One can buy books, find music, videos, and do research. One can shop, find recommendations for handymen, search for a car, and so much more but it also opens the door to bullying.
Think about it. It is easy to open a new email account, set up a website and say anything you like behind the anonymity of this identity. You can get together with friends to wage a campaign against someone you don’t like and school students think nothing of making comments and going after someone because they don’t have to do it face to face.
About 37% of students between the ages of 12 and 17 have experienced some sort of cyber bullying and about 95% of those between 12 and 17 have access to the internet via a digital device in the United States. This makes it so easy for people to bully someone else. In fact, only 23% have admited to being cruel to someone online. It has also been found that girls are more likely to perpetrate the cyberbullying than boys.
It is so easy to post something detrimental on the internet because there is no real way to police it. As stated earlier, the anonymity makes it so easy to be nasty to someone because no one knows you did it. For many people, it is so easy to participate in what someone else has started.
Unfortunately, most of the statistics available on cyberbullying involve people under the age of 18 but in reality, it happens all the time. It happens when we try body shameing someone, or when we hate a teacher so much that we go to a site where we can rate them. Convince enough others to post and you can get a teacher fired.
It’s not the bad reviews, it getting others to do the same as you so all the sudden, instead of just one person complaining, it is a herd who do it. People love acting with others because they feel a certain amount of invincibility if others are there. When we set out to destroy someone, that is bullying and when we do it online, it is cyberbullying.
I don’t know what to do about it because I do not want someone else to monitor everything and have them decide that I am bullying someone because I didn’t express something clearly. I honestly believe that as long as people feel they cannot be found, they will continue doing it, especially if others do not speak up and comment on it not being acceptable.
Let me know what you think, I’d love to hear. Have a great day.
