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.
Citations
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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