Cyberbullying
I have to disagree with Sternheimer, K. (2013). Does social networking kill? Cyberbullying, homophobia and suicide. I just recently had to create an inforgrpahic on cyberbullign and digital drama for another class I had and it made me think back to this chapter like Dayna Davis stated from the book “Teens are the least likely to commit suicide and forty-five to fifty-four years are the most likely” (Sternheimer 2013). I have to disagree with this statement just because I have done research and had to find up to date information and statistics before creating my infographic according to recent statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, US Department of Health and Human Services, Cyberbullying Research Center (2016), suicide is a big factor that comes from cyberbullying. So many adolescents have been through cyberbullying but do not repot it because they are scared to tell someone. Now with our growing technology places like Facebook, Instagram, and twitter are just some of the sites that have a problem with cyberbullying. It was sad to see that Facebook ranked a high 84% for cyberbullying. I personally do not use Facebook as much as I once did but I do keep it to stay in contact and chat with my cousins who live in France. It is sad to see that now people have misused the website that is offered to make new friends and connect with friends, but instead use for a place to throw hate words and terrorize an individual. Even thought the text does not talk about digital drama I thought I’d share this term. It is a new phrase being used to describe drama that happens online. It includes cyberbullying but another type of online stress comes from interactions that are not hostile at the start but have an increase burden and lead to confusion about how to respond in the future. Even though cyberbullying is bad I thought this was a little worse. Examples of digital drama can be a controlling friend who texts all the time, a friend who spies on your photos to breaks into your inbox, or a romantic partner who pressures you to send inappropriate selfies and so on. These situations are a little harder to handle but again people need to be aware of this and try to promote good techniques and show other they are not alone. I liked what Candice stated about media. “Media and bullying hit a nerve in me. I have a zero tolerance outlook on bullying. There are two ways of looking at this topic. One: facebook, twitter, snapchat, instagram, all news channels, TV programs are all avenues that bullies can use to hurt people. Two: these mediums can promote no bullying beliefs and highlight people like Ellen Degeneres, as role models. Since media is not going anywhere I believe we have to go with number two and fly high with it!” (Crandall). Media and technology is out there so we definitely need to promote role models and fight against problems like cyberbullying.
I’ve attached my infographic so hopefully it works it was just a little fact sheet about cyberbullying and digital drama.
