Cyber Bullying Become a Increasingly Serious National Issue as the Network Penetration

There was a guy, named Liangchen Ye, known by everyone just in one night because he bullied a college girl online. In September 29^th, a college girl who lives in Beijing, the capital of China, posted a screen shot of a conversation to Weibo (Chinese Facebook). This conversation is about a guy bullying her. Just several hours, an increasing number of people paid attention to this conversation, and blamed this guy. This guy only had about 200 followers before, and after this occurrence, he has more than 170，000 followers. It’s really not a good thing; some people found this guy in real life by flesh searches.

The Screen shot of the conversation (Photo from Weibo)

This guy was wrong because he bullied a girl online. But those people who blamed him did the same thing, which even worse than he did. They post his photos, address, and other personal information, which let that guy got a lot of trouble in his life.

The Weibo profile of this guy (Photo from Weibo)

In today’s society, almost everyone uses social media on the Internet all over the world. Along with it, here comes cyber bullying incidents, which is now a national issue, especially in teens’ age; some have even led to suicide. According to a website called Reuters, more than 10 percent of parents around the world say their child has been cyberbullied and nearly one-fourth know a youngster who has been a victim, according to a new Ipsos/Reuters poll. Cyber bullying becomes one of the most important factors to suicide, and people should try to improve this situation. There are three ways to reduce the issue of suicide caused by cyber bullying, which are identifying the danger signals, educating at a young age about Internet ethics, and limiting the age on social media sites.

Think Time: How Does Cyberbullying Affect You? – MySecureCyberspace (Video from YouTuBe)

Helping teenagers who are victims overcoming cyber bullying is a way to reduce the risk of suicide. Most of time, parents and teachers do not realize when some kids are being cyber bullied, thus they cannot take measures on time. Nine of ten teen cyber bullying victims choose facing this horrible problem alone without telling their parents or teachers or an adult (PRWeb Newswire, 2014). It has become an exigency to find out how to discover which kids are having this issue. The one signal is that child’s personality changed completely and suddenly. Young people who are cyber bullied might become sad, anxious, afraid and cannot concentrate on study. If a confident and outgoing girl became quiet within a period of time, maybe she has problems. Especially when child thinks about all things in his or her life negatively, parents and teachers should start to pay attention. In addition, children need their parents’ and friends’ company; there must be something wrong if they start looking for chances to stay alone without others. The youths, who are at risk of suicide, might isolate themselves from other people. What’s more, children changing their behaviors or habits suddenly is also an important danger signal; for instance, if a girl stopped chatting on Facebook with her friends anymore or updating her status as usual, someone should be alerted.

On the other side, banning cyber bullying of those young people who are perpetrators is also helpful. Nowadays, more teenagers start their online lives earlier. This leads to the increasing younger people starting SNS activities. They make a lot of groups, and talk about everything or everybody around them on social media for fun. But the problem is they are too young to be responsible for themselves and others. They do not know what is good or what is bad. Words are powerful when they are used as tools, and misunderstanding of language might bring disaster. To avoid cyber bullying, people should give children education about Internet ethics as early as possible. Parents are the first teachers for children. Trying to be a kind person is the first lesson they need to tell their children. Moreover, parents should set rules for their children before giving them smartphones. In addition, schools should set up a course to introduce cyber bullying, and it’s serious results. Everyone has the responsibility for his or her behaviors, even on the Internet. Adults should tell young people cyber bullying is harmful to others. A psychiatrist named Sebastain Kramer said that young people can be teased in the playground and it’s gone after a period of time, but if they have photos on Facebook, it’s there forever. (Daily Mail, 2014) People make serious mistakes because they don’t know how bad the consequences are.

With the development of Internet, increasing number of teenagers share their details of lives to others on social media sites. Adding friends on Facebook becomes a common thing when they meet new friends. It’s hard to supervise because there are too many SNS companies around the world. The photos of a 15-year-old girl’s boobs were spread on social media immediately; the perpetrator even made a Facebook page about it. She lost all her friends, and no one respected her any more. Finally, she committed suicide to end the cyber bullying (The Toronto Star, 2012). A lot of cyber bullying is spread in social media, so how about if teenagers are forbidden to set up social media accounts? If those companies can take responsibility by setting an age limitation to register, the suicides caused by cyber bullying may decrease. For example, young people below 18 years old should be prohibited from registering unless they link their parents’ social media site’s accounts when they use this social media site. Just like people can drink alcohol after they are 21 years old in America, the injunction is a really good way to avoid bad effects. When people grow up, their thinking faculty, judgment and self-control are all improved. At that time, when they face the cyber bullying in social media, they get less hurt and have better perspectives on overcoming the issue.

From a survey, over 50% of the students identify themselves as being involved in cyber bullying, as victims, perpetrators or both (Risk factors for involvement in cyber bullying: Victims, bullies and bully–victims, 2012). In the past few years, cyber bully has caused more and more teens to commit suicide. People should attach importance to this problem. Even though it cannot be solved entirely, we should do something to help relieve this issue.

References

Borland, S. (2014, November 5). Cyber bullies ‘fuel surge in childhood depression’. Daily Mail. p. 5.

Fong, P (2012). B.C. outraged over girl’s death; Cyber-bullying victim commits         suicide after she posted video of how she was depressed. The Toronto Star (Toronto, Ontario).

Mishna, F., Khoury-Kassabri, M., Gadalla, T., & Daciuk, J. (2012). Risk factors for involvement in cyber bullying: Victims, bullies and bully–victims. Children And Youth Services Review, 3463-70. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2011.08.032

Unknown (2014). “Cyber Bullying Suicide, an Article Released Today by NoBullying.” PRWeb Newswire 23 July 2014. Business Insights: Essentials. Web. 9 Oct. 2015. URL: http://bi.galegroup.com/essentials/article/GALE%7CA375852782/6b58f916714141444b9e7ce1511f19d4?u=plattsbg_main 

“Cyberbullying a Problem around the Globe: Poll.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 11 Jan. 2012. Web. 9 Oct. 2015. URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/11/us-cyberbullying-poll-idUSTRE80A1FX20120111

Blog7: Opinion of National Issue