The Internet Becomes More than Just Harmless Fun
Noureen Ben Halim
Bullying has been known for a long time to be the harassment of others. It is the intimidation of one person by another. But due to 21st century technology, bullying has been transformed. Bullying no longer takes the form of threats, peer pressure, and discrimination, but also happens online as well.
Cyber-bullying, or the bullying of others through the use of the internet, allows a person to remain anonymous while harming others. Networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, have become popular among teenagers nowadays.
There are countless examples of cyber-bullying. A bully sends a friend request, the teenager accepts it, and bam, a stranger has access to the victim’s profile. The person starts receiving threatening emails, messages, or even having pictures of themselves posted on websites by anonymous users. Another way a teen may be mistreated via the internet is when the bully creates a fake profile, with the teen’s name, picture, and even personal information. A third way is through MSN, AIM, and Yahoo instant messengers. Chatting with strangers and sharing pictures or webcam is dangerous. Even receiving anonymous files through Bluetooth on cell phones could actually be a disguise for a virus.
While some bullies realize the effect that they will have on the people they bully, others just want to have “harmless fun.” It is not harmless, it can hurt people emotionally.
Things can be done in order to avoid the bullying. 1) If they encounter anything on the internet that may be harmful to someone, they should not laugh at it; it may be adding to the harm. 2) If a teenager is in a bullying situation, responding to the bully
in an equivalently threatening way is not the solution. That will make the victim a bully. 3) The best way to end cyber-bullying is to report any threats, messages, posted pictures, or anything offensive to someone to the networking site. Everyone should be aware of this phenomenon. It targets many young people, especially teenagers. It can be emotionally harmful and abusive. In order to avoid it, teens should be circumspect about what they do on the internet. A person can never be 100% sure of the identity of others on the internet.
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