Criminalizing Cyberbullying

The purpose of this essay is to state my thoughts on criminalizing cyberbullying. I say that cyberbullying should be criminalized. It would protect teens from the negative emotional and social effects of bullying. Cyberbullying lowers self-esteem, increases the amount of teen suicides and self harm and can ruin schooling. If cyberbullying was a criminal offence, it would create a safer environment for both students and teachers. Firstly, cyberbullying is the repeated action of embarrassing, threatening or hurting someone online with a device of some sort. If these actions and behaviours continue long enough, cyberbullying can lower self esteem. Cyberbullying can lower self esteem because a rude comment or being negatively criticized hurts your feelings, but when it's repeated, you feel even worse. For example, if a group of people constantly tell you that you are ugly, you probably will start to believe that you are ugly, and your self confidence will fall. You may also become self conscious or shy. Some may argue that the cyberbullies won't care or think about the law, but I

There are people who shared their bullying stories in a video booth at a school and were posted on a website - cbc.ca. There were many videos, but one girl's experience stood out to me. Ashley (the victim) said, "Everyday I would go to school and get bullied... And with time it caused me to become suicidal, and it ruined two years of my schooling." Ashley said that she would have been done school by now. According to an article on nasponline.org (National Association of School Psychologists), victims can sometimes have trouble concentrating, fail school, even avoid school altogether. The 2011 Youth Risk Behaviour Surveillance Survey finds that 16% of high school students (grades 9-12) were electronically bullied in the past year. If the law had been up, some of these incidents might not have happened, and there would be more successful