The Computer Revolution/Security/Cyber Bullying

In today’s world of fast and ever growing technology, there is a new bully in town called cyber-bullying. What this means is adolescents and teens use this form of bullying kids via their phones or computer via the internet. This is a very hurtful way to harm someone’s identity of self-esteem. They use this tactic to send threatening messages to another person’s e-mail or cell phone. If someone doesn’t like someone else they may send derogatory text messages to all their friends and maybe their friends. This in turns create false rumors about a person. How many times have you heard of teens sending a sexually explicit photo of themselves to someone they thought they could trust? These malicious acts can cause someone to be depressed, have anxiety, or even commit suicide. There have been numerous acts of suicide because teens can be brutal when they are cyber-bullying someone. Some of them may find this to be funny until there are consequences. You don’t want to feel that you caused someone to harm themselves because you thought it was funny. Once you post things on the internet or send pictures these things are still out there for someone to find, they never go away. What you post now could come back to haunt you later. Cyber-bullying is a very serious offense. In a lot of cases teens or adolescents don’t tell anyone until it has devastated them and sometimes not then. They may feel embarrassed or don’t want people to think it may have been their fault. We need to teach our children that this is unacceptable no matter what. Girls and boys are victims and it doesn’t matter what race you are.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/Cyberbully-gmail.JPG

Cyberbullying is a growing problem these days with all the social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Cyberbullies use the internet (Facebook for example) to talk about people, stalk people, or post pictures of the individual which are not meant for the public eye. As an adult, you can know right from wrong and can avoid people who are bullying you, block that person from your list, or report that person as misusing the internet to solve the problem. Children on the other hand may not know the signs of cyberbullying or cyberstalking. To kids this could just be a friendly person trying to be their friend until the child gives away too much information and ends up getting hurt. As parents you cannot monitor what your kids are doing all day, but you can restrict the sites they are allowed to go on and block others you do not want them visiting. You can also talk to your children about never giving away any personal information on the internet as it can be very harmful.

http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/talk/cyberbullying.html