Abdul Moaeed
Professor Anna Voisard
English 110
April 25,2022
The Cyberbullying Pandemic.
Cyberbullying is becoming a pandemic as technology keeps advancing, and taking some dark turns. About 75% of the teen population have a smartphone, but 93% are on social media. The improvement in technology can be used to bully someone, without the victim knowing the actual appearance of the bully. Cyberbullying needs to end, as a lot of teens are becoming mentally ill and suicidal. Cyberbullying needs more media attention as nearly 60% of teens don’t speak up, there should be severe consequences for people who cyberbully.
The darkest advancement of technology is called Deepfake Technology, which allows the bully to become a different person without having a trace, which makes it hard to identify the bully. . The bully alters his or her face, to make them look like a different person on a frozen screen, and then proceeds to harass the victim. Crimes using Deepfake Technology are known to be the hardest crimes to solve as stated by The New York Times “ The police suspect that the altered media was created through deepfake technology, which is becoming both more sophisticated and accessible, playing into experts’ concerns that it can be used to harass or commit crimes.” Raffaela Marie Spone, a 50 year old woman from Bucks County, Pennsylvania showed her evilness by using Deepfake Technology to bully three cheerleaders, their parents and the owners of the gym where they practiced. The form of cyberbullying that was used was blackmailing, unknown messages containing nudity of the cheerleaders, and them drinking alcohol and smoking vape. That was just not the end of it, she harassed one cheerleader by telling her to commit suicide. The New York Times stated “ Some of the anonymous messages contained doctored images and videos that attempted to incriminate the teenagers with fake depictions showing some of them nude, drinking alcohol or vaping. At times, the text messages took an even darker turn, telling at least one girl to die by suicide.” This goes to show how the advancement of technology is turning dark and becoming beneficial to criminals. Deepfake technology is accessible to any person with a device and is putting people in fear and danger as also stated by The New York Times This technology is not only very prevalent, but easy to use,” said Matt Weintraub, the Bucks County district attorney, whose office has been overseeing the case. “This is something your neighbor down the street can use, and that’s very scary.” With this technology the rate of cyberbullying is more than likely to rise, and it makes it easier for the bully to not get caught and it is threatening as this technology can be reached by anybody. As of 2020 the rate of cyberbullying in teens from ages 18 to adults the age of 29 was 64% according to PEW
Research Center, which is insanely high. During the year of 2020, a pandemic struck all over the world, which caused all Schools and Jobs to shut down and lean towards making everything go online, hence why there are so many victims of cyberbullying. A pandemic led to another pandemic called the cyberbullying pandemic.
Not only is technology taking a dark turn, there is no way of preventing it as more and more teens and adults have access to a smartphone making their chances high of becoming a victim of cyberbullying. According to a research done at San Diego State University by Jean M. Twenge, access to a smart phone with a social media account or accounts puts a higher risk of adapting to mental illnesses as said by ( The Daily Beast ) ” The author refers to the adolescents of this generation as “iGen teens” and argues that they are uniquely susceptible to experiencing cyberbullying, which places them at higher risk for anxiety, depression, and thoughts of suicide. ” Every teen is glued to their phones and because of that, cyberbullying is most likely to occur which can lead to long term mental illnesses with a chance of suicide. Cyberbullying can occur no matter the race, religion, poor or rich, but mental issues occur more amongst girls who encounter cyberbullying as also stated by ( The Daily Beast ) “ These trends appear among teens from every background-across the country, among all ethnic groups, and among disadvantaged teens as well as more privileged ones. But there was one major demographic difference: The sudden increase in mental health issues was much more pronounced among girls.” Teens need to decrease the time limit they’re spending on social media or just being attached to their phones because the chances of running into an evil person online is quite high. Women tend to get cyberbullied more because they so called have a perspective of how they should look like, dress like which causes mental illnesses and self hate which most of the times has an ending of committing suicide as also said by ( The Daily Beast ) “ it makes sense that girls would be more affected. Girls in every generation have fretted about their appearance and jockeyed for acceptance among their friends. That’s probably why girls spend more time on social media and texting-technologies that bring those concerns into girls’ lives around the clock. With their phones always there, girls find it difficult to escape constant worries about getting enough likes and followers. Social media in particular provides a moment-by-moment update of who’s in and who’s out-those indicators of popularity that are so important to girls at this age. “ Social media has put a negative image on how women should look like because it all matters about the likes they want to get ,if it does not match their expectation it puts self hatred on to them which leads to Depression, Anxiety and suicidal thoughts with the high risk of actually committing it. Social Media platforms should be able to put online security in their systems and protect victims from getting cyberbullied as most teens do not speak up about it and with the built in security feature,( if possible) will decrease the rate of cyberbullying and make teens more comfortable being online knowing their safety.
Some people do not claim cyberbullying as a major rising issue and claim that the stories of victims are dragged out and taken further than they are supposed to . In the article Cyberbullying: An overrated phenomenon? It states “ The paper argues that several claims about cyberbullying made in the media and elsewhere are greatly exaggerated and have little empirical scientific support” (Olweus). This is false and not true one bit, as I myself had been a victim of cyberbullying in middle school and the effects it puts on your mental is really serious because it lead me to self hatred and having the thought of just wanting it to end, as I was getting called names based on my religion and about my body weight at that time and I would personally like to say cyberbullying is not an exaggeration as it is a serious issue which leads the victim like myself to have mental issues. The effect of cyberbullying is the same type of pain as physical or verbal bullying, but it leans towards the mental part more and is not physical. Once your mind is filled with mental issues, you tend to feel as if there is no escape and/or help. Some of the stuff that was said to me was out of mockery based on my religion of Islam, for instance the word ‘Allahuakbar’ which means god is great, was used in an awful way, which correlated to the stereotypes of muslims being terrorists, which is not the case, as anybody that is a mass murderer is considered a terrorist no matter the race and religion. The article states “ Contradicting these claims, it turns out that cyberbullying, when studied in proper context, is a low-prevalence phenomenon, which has not increased over time and has not created many “new” victims and bullies, that is, children and youth who are not also involved in some form of traditional bullying” (Olweus). This argument doesn’t make sense because as in 2012 33.9% of children that were victims of cyberbullying had mental issues , which as of today 2022 is at78%which is a huge increase as you can see in the graph below:
As we can see if we add together the forms of mental issues it puts the percentage at approximately 78%, and that is a huge rise which would also mean a rise in cyberbullying. This is an issue that doesn’t get the attention it deserves and it is going on a rise which is bad for society, and it will lead to never ending problems, which is why cyberbullying is a serious issue and majority of the victims do not speak up leaving them out of the percentage mix. If people spoke up, the percentage would be twice as high then it is right now.
A true story about cyberbullying with no exaggeration is every victim’s story that gets out in the public eye in the form of social media, but that also means not everybody’s story is out there as it is a sensitive topic and it is really hard to talk about. One victim whose life was taken by his own self due to the effects of cyberbullying was named David Molak, who at the time was 16 years old in the year of 2015. A regular kid who loved video games, sports and was an eagle scout who was bullied by his classmates on Instagram by getting comparisons to the movie The Planet Of The Apes which led to his suicide attempts in which he failed twice but the third and last time , he was successful. As stated in the article “Are schools doing enough to protect victims? ” Despairing, David tried to kill himself twice. The third time, in January 2016, he succeeded. His mother found him hanging from a tree in the family’s backyard. “They crushed his spirit and took away his motivation to do anything,” his older brother Cliff said (Ladika). This is the one reason why living in the times of technology can be so harmful, as innocent lives are getting taken away by suicide and parents heart’s are getting crushed seeing their own children dead by suicide, due to the fact some people in this world are cruel and sickening The way people harassed David was relatable with me in a way , getting called horrendous names which to some people sounds like a joke and to the victims it shatters their world as you don’t know what everybody’s dealing with privately which can also affect mental health and lead to a higher chance of suicide. Name calling and disturbing comparisons based on facial features are the main ways a bully gets what he wants in order to cause the victim mental pain, which not only the victim experiences, but the whole family. The article states “If all school personnel carry out a bullying prevention program in the same way, it’s going to be more impactful,” says Jonathan Schwartz, associate dean of graduate studies in the College of Education at the University of Houston” (Ladika). Bullying in general does not get talked about as much as it needs to, and pushing the effort to make a bullying prevention program in every single school nationwide is the best solution as it will provide protection to the students and lower the risk of cyberbullying or in general all types of bullying which include, physical and verbal bullying.
Cyberbullying is a topic that is quite barely ever spoken about, due to the fact some people feel like the solution to cyberbullying is easy as deleting social media, which sometimes might be the case, but rarely as the bully could find major other ways to bully the victim such as, making a fake profile or even as far as taking it in person leading to physical bullying . As said in an article “ Some parents may just tell their kids to just delete their accounts and they will be okay. Although many people believe that deleting your social media or accounts will resolve the problem of someone being cyber bullied, it will not. It’s the bully an opportunity to do other things like make a fake profile and pretend to be you or bully in person” (Inserrsa). This makes it seem as there is no escape from cyberbullying, which leads to fear and anxiety but the way to actually go about cyberbullying and putting an end to it is speaking out. Deleting social media accounts to teens and children seems like a hard task because it feels like they have lost connection to the world as said in the article “ Deleting your social media accounts can give children a sense of isolation from the rest of the world, being that today’s world is centered over the Internet and technology (Inserra). The main sense of addiction is how people base their lives off of famous people and hurt their self confidence and they make social media the main aspect of their daily lives, which continuously influences our youth mainly to the negative aspect of ‘real life’. The more attention that leans toward cyberbullying could give a voice to the people who have been victims for years and haven’t been able to speak out about it, which makes it so tough on their mental and leads to an increase in stress.
Overall, cyberbullying is considered a pandemic as it is quickly going on a rise and is making it a major threat for our future generations, as everything nowadays is surrounded around the internet. Schools must take actions all around the globe to develop a bullying prevention program, as that is one of the main ways to tackle cyberbullying and stop it from reaching our youth. Personal experiences of cyberbullying that I had dealt with made me into a stronger person as I spoke up and had friends that were with me through it all, the best way to put an end to this cyberbullying pandemic is to speak up and put an end to this horrible issue that is occurring in our society till this day. Together we can be a helping hand and put a stop to this by being kind to someone, as their private life may be enough stress on them. It is our job as humans to build each other up instead of bringing each other down, we are most likely to prosper as a successful generation if we work together to end the issue of cyberbullying by being a kind human being, that’s all it requires to end cyberbullying.
Citation
Inserra, Joanna. “Cyber Bullying:” Weebly, Oct. 8th. 2018. againstcyberbullyingforever.weebly.com/counter-arguments-and-conclusion.html.
Ladika, Susan. “Bullying and Cyberbullying February 2, 2018 – Volume 28, Issue 5 Are Schools Doing Enough to Protect Victims?” Shibboleth Authentication Request, 2 Feb. 2018, https://library-cqpress-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2018020200&type=hitlist&num=0.
Morales, Christina. “Pennsylvania Woman Accused of Using Deepfake Technology to Harass Cheerleaders.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 Mar. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/14/us/raffaela-spone-victory-vipers-deepfake.html.
“Teen Girls With Smartphones Flirt Most With Depression and Suicide; A Spike in the Teen Suicide Rate Parallels Almost Exactly the Rise of Smartphone Use, Especially Among Teen Girls, Who Are the Most Vulnerable to Cyberbullying and Alienation.” Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, 2018.
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