Cyber Bullying: Sending Bullets Behind a Screen

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Twelve million views on YouTube. “You’re gay”. “Ugliest boy alive”. “Go kill yourself and finish what they started”. Words that were imprudently wrote on Facebook. A video of a little boy beaten half to death with a bat, and his “friends” on probation for committing the abuse, and videotaping it for the public to witness; yet bullying online keeps increasing. Words and phrases that spill all over the internet from people who don’t even know him, but believe he should die, make him question who he really is. Ben is one of millions who has been a cybervictim in a precarious online world that seems to exacerbate day by day. It was only a matter of time before the cyber bullets at home in his room became too much for him to hear. The quick rise to social media has left a crack in its glorification; lettings viewers grasp the negative side effects, one which includes cyber bullying. Social media use through the tech savvy generation has built a foundation for an escalation of cyber bullying to occur, leaving the door open to easily attack kids behind a screen, while its perpetrators receive no consequences, scarring children with lasting emotional side effects.
Cyber bullying is using technology such as cell phones, computers, tablets, and any other forms of communication to create fake profiles, send hurtful messages, pictures, rumors, videos, or emails to affront others. Today, children use social media to depict their feelings and torment others in a public milieu. Kids no longer have to assemble in the same classroom or stand in the same hallway to asperse or print pictures of others. Now bullies can exploit the target from their own homes and their cybervictim is no longer comfortable in theirs (Gallagher, 2013, para. 10). Soc...

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