Actions Speak Louder than Words: Stand Up for Internet Safety
Seventeen Magazine’s articles may not all have educational and profound meaningful values, but occasionally such discussions do make an appearance. The December/ January issue features an article, “Invisible Attack,” which displays horror stories of teens being terrorized, bullied, humiliated, stalked, and abused solely involving influence of the internet. The entries describe personal accounts as the self- confidence and safety of these individuals deteriorates.
Besides the horrors of “digital abuse”, I connect with understanding how the Internet changed the way of society. Technology is evolving quickly as is the world around it who adapt to the new way of life. When great websites such as myspace and facebook can function for the use of keeping track of current and old friends, the issue flourishes to involve predators. These websites make it simple for someone to uncover personal information even without a friend request.
An individual barrier of security for myself includes making all settings private. While I feel I know most of my friends on the Internet, an occasional mutual friend may appear and without a proper introduction, suddenly I know everything about them. With just one click I can see their friends, enemies, hobbies, favorite movies, screen name, phone number, and more. Although I attempt to keep information private, I still have a fear this information can be used for a greater evil.
The stories from the magazine shocked me about how far people go just to degrade someone else. Not only are people, especially young girls being judged on the way they look and their disposition in person, but now also on photos, videos, profile information and other components online. One young girl in this article discovered a group about her weight and lack of speed on the track team created by three of her fellow classmates. Her friends did not inform her about this page but rather she stumbled upon it by chance.
If girls took to a fist fight outside of school one day, many people would attempt to break it up and stop the madness no matter who the people. Why doesn’t this occur online too? My personal belief stands that everyone should be protected by others from every type of harm. Sometimes the non- physical pain can sting the most and stay imbedded in your mind the longest. With the support of friends and peers, hopefully less harm will come to an individual. If I saw something unordinary for on of my friends on the Internet, I would call it to attention for them as I would hope they would for me. The use of Internet sites comes with a risk, but with the defense of other beings, nothing serious should occur.
Julia, I certainly agree with you on your stance towards “cyber-bullying.” While many people consider the cynical groups “just a joke,” they do not realize the damage they create. Unfortunately, often the victims in these acts remain silent and fear to speak against the bullies.
One extreme case of this malevolent act happened two and a half years ago, when a thirteen year-old girl had a online relationship with a sixteen year-old boy. Then, abruptly one day, the boy accused her of being mean and began to post deplorable comments and statements about the girl. These terrible comments led the girl to hang herself. Well, it turned out that the boy lacked a real identity; the cyber-boyfriend was composed of a mother-daughter team that had tried to see if the victim was saying bad things about her friend.
Although the severity of an incident like this one does not occur often, I think it is just as bad as posting a sardonic remark about someone else. Unfortunately, this also happened to me every so often. What the victims of these incidents have to remember, I believe, is to never take any of it seriously. The people who post such things are simply looking for attention, and would like to put someone else down in order to feel good about themselves. Often I look back on these events and think, the person posting the mean statements has a much bigger problem to deal with than the victim.