written by Lintang
Cyberbullying
For
as long as we can remember, it was not long ago that most people did not even
have a computer or laptop in their own homes. Just take a look at the
generation before the 21st century, computers/laptops were unheard
and internet did not exist for average people. Today, computers & laptops
are in just about everywhere, giving people especially the young ones access to
technology they have never had before. From the look of it, this is a useful
tool to help them grow and learn, however, it is also a dangerous element that
can lead to bullying that can have a negative impact on life. Surely, bullying
is not something new, but it has certainly changed over the years. In the past,
children were often bullied at school or in the neighborhood. Today, with the
increased use of internet and social media, children are now being bullied in
all locations, at all times. That just goes to indicate that social media
bullying is a step worse than the traditional one for it can lead to a more
negative impact on life than a traditional one can do. The words social media
bullying have been shouted so much and very loudly now that it is heard in all
over the world, the only reason behind it is because it is happening in more
places than ever before meaning it has become a big issue. Children need to
live a normal life and develop into fully-functional adults without being
bullied. So the act of social media bullying must be stopped but since it will
take a lot of hard work and time to do to really stop it completely, we all can
try to at least prevent it ; from the role of parents, teachers and above these
two is, our own selves.
Social media is one of the most used
types of websites by teenagers. And as for social media bullying which best
known as cyberbullying can include posting negative comments on pictures/posts,
posting abusive posts on a user’s wall and using pictures or videos to make fun
of another user. The impacts are a lot of things from the decreasing of
self-esteem, self-confidence, to the worst is, suicide. Now that cyberbullying
has really become a big issue of a problem. As for that matter, the role of
parents is important here for they are actually the one children can turn to
when they have problems whatsoever, besides parents are also those who
understand their children better and can take a good control of them. Parents
on this issue are to make sure that their children are not a victim or the one
who does cyberbullying. Parents should be well aware of this issue and keep an
eye out for their children by having a good bond of a relationship with them.
For instance, is by engaging occasional conversations about how things are
going with their children online and offline. From that, parents can see if
their children are the victims of cyberbullying or the ones who take part of
cyberbullying. Children might not just give the answer away but even then,
parents can draw out a conclusion from their answers. For example is try to ask
children about what they know of cyberbullying, who have experienced it and
what would they do if they were cyberbullied. If their answers are no where
near convincing, it may be a sign that the children need extra support from the
parents in terms of helping him or her strengthen the
self-confidence that might have been shaken and restore a sense of physical and
emotional safety. But the ultimate goal of the occasional conversations after
all is the regaining of restored self-respect and others-respect so that they
know better not to do cyberbullying if they are a part of it or so that they
know how to handle things if they are cyberbullied. However, this won’t work if
the children are not so much of an open up person nor are they type to listen
and have chit chats with their parents. Not to mention, if the parents are not
ones to talk to their children or worse part is if the parents have no idea at
all about the issue so this absolutely won’t work.
However,
in actuality, it
is not only the role of parents that is in work in preventing cyberbullying but
also teachers. Teachers, as those whom children listen or face the most in a
day because half of their day is spent in school, should give knowledge about
social media bullying to their students, its bad effect and its
inappropriateness of an act to have/do. So when the role of parents does not
seem to be right, there is still the role of teachers. Besides, it is not so
much of a difference about the effects it causes. When these young people are
given the knowledge about cyberbullying even if they are already familiar with
it, they will get the sense that cyberbullying is not a choice about to do or
not to do it but it is more about the fact that it is just not an act to do nor
to have, ever. But then again, not every student would listen to their teachers
nor would what they say get to them.
In the end, preventing the act of
bullying turns down on ourselves or handling things when cyberbullying seems to
come to ourselves also turns down on ourselves. We are the one to decide over
the act but one thing is needed to be remembered is that we should be well
aware that things on social media should not always be taken seriously because
after all it is just a social media, we can always ignore it. And most
importantly, we should be well aware of self-respect and others-respect and
that is good enough to stop anyone from doing bullying or handling things when
being bullied for that matter. On the other hand, self-respect and
others-respect can be achieved from the goal of parents’ role. And when these
young people know how to stand up for themselves when being bullied they will
automatically get the sense to also stand up for others. Real examples of
cyberbullying are everywhere to be found and from all those many examples, we
can take a look at what happened with Carri Keill, 18, the writer of Huffington
Post magazine. She has a big sized body and is beautiful in her own way and she
had never been judged by her peers about her appearance in real life because people
know how good she actually is of a person and that she is a good writer.
Instead, she said that she judged people because of their lack of writing
ability without she even realized it. Apparently, once when she posted an
article on HPM where her picture was being showed right under the article, the
comments on the comment bar turned out to be nothing about the article she
wrote but about her appearance instead. The comments kept on coming that it
really got to her that she did not want to write again but her parents were
fast to notice so she could get out of the problem by facing it together with
them. Finally she wrote an article again the next couple of weeks after the
last one about cyberbullying. She hoped that her article could help and inspire
others and it apparently really did. The other example comes from a Canadian
singer, Justin Bieber, he was a victim of bullying when he was not famous and
when he is famous and has become very successful, he decided to be a part of an
online application that goes against cyberbullying known as Shots with the
support of his family and friends. In addition, actually there are still a lot
of examples out there about cyberbullying and how to prevent and handle it.
That is, cyberbullying has possibilities
to be stopped by preventing it to happen first. Also, how to handle things
about cyberbullying should be acknowledged and owned by everyone. For this
reason, the role of parents, teachers and above this two is our own selves are
needed to help young people handle any issues that come their way. As in what
has been mentioned above, parents should be well aware of this issue and keep
an eye out for their children by having a good bond of a relationship with them
while teachers should give knowledge about social media bullying to their
students. However, preventing the act of bullying turns down on ourselves at
the end. We are the one to decide over the act but the thing is that we should
be well aware of self-respect and others-respect which come from the role of parents.
That is, in order to make this work, the role of parents must be achieved first
and then it will affect the children that it would finally lead to a stop of
cyberbullying.
