Cyber-Bullying and aTeenage Suicide Essay Example for Free

Cyber-Bullying and aTeenage Suicide EssayA news account d one(a) by Pew Research Center from 2007-2010 tell that 95% of all teens use the net income and 80% of them use amicable networking sites (www. Edgewave. com). One in three teens is cyber-bullied (The Guardian, Tues, Aug 6, 2013). One in 13 teens typesetters font persistence abuse online (The Guardian. ). Cyber-bullies do not see the stultification they cause or the consequences of their actions which minimizes any feelings of remorse. This gives the kids more(prenominal) advantage to say crude and hurtful things they would not do in person. Cyber-bullying is devastating when nasty things ar verbalized, exactly when someone sends pictures of one that is not meant for the mankind to see this type of damage is more bad than the nastiness of words. The betrayal one must feel to know someone close to them would hurt them by exposing such material. The subsequentlymath, for that experience is destructive for ones s elf-image and self-esteem. When a teen is subjected to such negativity, it whitethorn poking them everywhere the leaping. The damage cyber-bullying causes asshole be deep and gigantic lasting.The damage that cyber-bullying can cause is d confesshearted self-esteem, withdrawal, poor grades, school absences, self- harm, depression, risks for addictive behaviors such as drinking and using drugs and in the worst cases one take their own life, because they can no longer take the never ending pain that is cosmos ca utilise by the bullying. Cyber-bullying has been the terminal cause in the teens mentioned in this report as to why they committed self-destruction. Although, this was not the only underlining factor, legion(predicate) of these teens suffered from depression and other mental illnesses (WebMD, 2007).I run through raise several articles round teen self-annihilations that were connected to cyber-bullying. The first such case of teen suicide connected to cyber-bullying was reported on October 7, 2003 in Essex Jct. , Vermont. Ryan Halligan was a 13 year old and he was bullied for numerous years. His p bents thought the bullying was through and over with until his suicide. His father went into his ready reckoner and found that Ryan was being severely harassed. The person who bullied him years before, but became friends with ulterior bullied Ryan. His parent has warned Ryan not to trust this person, because he betrayed him before.Ryan told his friend stories and eventually his friend turned on him unknowingly to Ryan and he was being bullied over social media sites and at school. Ryans father was not aware of this until after Ryans death and he was trying to make sense of why he son took his own life. He soon figured it out. Ryans parents were devastated. John Halligan has been totally dedicated in honoring the recollection of his son. As well as to raise awareness on the issues, that led to Ryans death. John spearheaded the Vermonts Bully Preven tion bill that was signed into law (ACT 117) in May 2004 middling a some months after Ryans death (RyanPatrickHalligan.Mr. Halligan has also successfully led the passage of the law pertaining to mandatory suicide prevention education in public schools (ACT 114) signed in April 2006 (RyanPatrickHalligan. Org). John Halligan has been recognized with five allocate for his outstanding community service, hard work and outreach he has done in his sons memory and his dedication to discipline others on these issues (RyanPatrickHalligan. Org). Prior to their suicides, some of these teens did cry out for help by ventureing heartbreaking videos and updates on their sites.The examples I would same to use to support this statement are as follows My Story struggling, bullying, suicide, and self-harm Amandas YouTube Video. remaining this video of Amanda was heartbreaking. To see any children go through that kind of pain and they feel they get to nowhere to turn just breaks my heart. I wi pe out a teenage daughter who has been bullied in every appearance imaginable. I know what problems being bullied and harassed can create. She cried out for help with the Facebook posts, the flashcards, cutting and other behaviors.As I stated earlier, cyber-bullying is not the only problem that causes one to commit suicide in that location are other factors involved. I can relate to an extent with the parents who have lost their children to suicide. My daughter has sampleed suicide and almost succeeded. It has been the worst experience to go through. She has refused all the help that was always there for her until the last attempt where she has been placed in a residential facility that I feel has saved my daughters life. Tyler Clementi was a quiet 18-year-old talented violinist. He started his first year at Rutgers University in 2010.Tyler came out of the public press with his family before leaving for college his brother James said in a statement where he discussed what a wond er person Tyler was, the suicide of his brother, what life is like without him and the close bond they shared growing up and that they both are gay. (James Clementi, www. queerty. com). Tyler discovered his roommate used his webcam to stream intimate moments with his boyfriend over the mesh (New York Times, establish 16, 2012). Tyler displace and e-mail requesting a single room, because of the webcam spying issue on phratry 21, 2010 active 4 a.m. (New York Times, March 16, 2012).Dharun Ravi whom was the roommate of Tyler apparently searched the internet prior to starting Rutgers and discovered Tylers sexuality. Dharum was not pleased to have a gay roommate and sent several textual matters to friend about keeping gays out (New York Times, March 16, 2012). Tyler asked his roommate for some privacy one evening to spend era with his companion. This second attempt to use his webcam to mainstream activity between Tyler and his companion was halted, because Tyler found the camera po inted at his hit the hay (New York Times, March 16, 2012).Dharum tweeted that he seen his roommate making out with a dude and invited others via text to watch the start stream action (New York Times, March 16, 2012). From all the information, I have read on this case the final message from Tyler that was discovered after his death in a gay chat room was how to merchandise with the invasion of his privacy in such intimate moments and facing the people who were ignorant enough to watch it. I am going to assume that he felt he would have been bullied and harassed constantly, because of the webcam video. On September 22, 2010 at 842 P. M.Tyler Clementi posted on Facebook Jumping off the GW bridge, sorry. Tylers body was not recovered, but the police did pull an unidentified male body from the Hudson River north of the river where he jumped. Tylers wallet with his freshman identification was at the scene (ABC News, Sept 29, 2010). Dharum Ravi was charged with several charged and serv ed a jail sentence. The other person involve exchange her testimony for reduced charges (New York Times, March 16, 2012). A huge problem with cyber-bullying is that is can be done with complete anonymity. Teenage years are hardened enough to experience.When a teenager is being cyber-bullied and humiliated in front of the jillions of people, it is like having a brown bag over your head in the social media world many can take a jabs instantaneously. When they feel like everyone is against them their self-esteem is non-existent and they slowly fall into a depressive type state. Not knowing who is reflection or doing the harsh content makes it worse and makes it easier for the teenager to withdrawal. With the research I have done for this project, the experiences I have experienced as a parent and help from my teenagers, I have found many social networking sites that allow anonymity postings.A few examples of these social networking sites are www. pencourage. com, www. youmitter. com , Tumblr. com and formspring. me. The one that I found the most information on was the social networking site Ask. fm. All of these sites mentioned are question and answer social networking sites that allow anonymous participation. Ask. fm has been in the national headlines involving several teenage suicides. Ask. fm has 30 million participators who minors (Huffington Post, August 30, 2013).With the research I have done on Ask.fm, I came across the fable of Hannah Smith a beautiful, 14 year old who committed suicide due to being subjected to beastly taunts and insults on Ask. fm (The Huffington Post, Aug 30, 2013). David Smith, Hannahs father stated in the Huffington Post on August 30, 2013, These retch people are just able to go online and hide behind a mask of anonymity while they abuse vulnerable teenagers When theyre sitting behind a computer screen you can say whatever you want and there no comebacks, but these trolls need to realize that they are touching peoples lives in the most horrific way imaginable (Huffington Post, Aug 30, 2013).In my opinion, Mr. Smith stated this perfect. I have wondered if any of the people involved in the cyber-bullying that finally pushed Hannah and other teens over the edge to end their lives if they have a conscience. I wonder if they are able to sleep at wickedness knowing they are some of the reason another person ending their life. Interesting, with more investigating for this report I found on a website called www. cyberbullyingresearchcenter. us .The information that is in investigation on the case with Ask.fm and the cyber-bullying case of Hannah Smith has been founded that 98% of the messages sent to Hannah were from the same IP denotation as Hannah was using which indicates she was direct the meanspirited, threatening messages to herself (www. cyberbullyingresearchcenter. org). IP is short for Internet Protocol Address. IP addresses are assigned to every computer on an Ethernet Network (www. dummies. com). Th e IP address is similar to your home address. No two computers can have the same IP address on the same network (www. dummies.com).Ask. fm has identified four messages that were sent to Hannah from different IP addresses and has agreed to turn the information over to the police (The Telegraph August 11, 2013). thither is no guaranteed proved that Hannah sent these messages to herself. There are other possibilities of how the messages were sent from the same IP address such as Wi-Fi connection or a school network. Mr. Smith does not deny Hannah may have sent herself some of these messages, but feels Ask. fm are trying to cover their butts. Mr.Smith has the call of one of the trolls that was harassing his daughter and the authorities do not seem interested in the information. In my opinion, there is much more to this suicide story than we the public willing ever know about. Due to the recent suicides that involved Ask. fm on August 19, 2013 the social networking website agreed to m ake some changes (www. heavy. com). Ask. fm has involve a report bullying or harassment button that would compel the website to investigate reported comments (www. heavy. com).This swash is expected to go live in September 2013. Ask.fm stated they precious their users to be able to have fun, share information and make friends freely they want their younger users to be able to do this in a safe environment (www. heavy. com) Finally, the teen suicide rate has increased over the last 15 years (WebMD 2007). In my opinion, this has a lot to do with the advanced technology that teens have constant get to to today. The ole bullying has transpired into a more severe problem called cyber-bullying. This is done through social networks, instant messages, e-mails and text messages. Electronic bullying is instant.Bullying is no longer the traditional note passing in the halls at schools. Bullying and cyber-bullying does not stop at the end of the school day as it did prior to the internet and other advanced technology we have today. Cyber-bullying triples suicide risks in teens (Sherry Boschert, Pediatric News. Digital Network). Girls are often the target of being cyber-bullied than boys. Usually by a 9% difference in studies, I came across. universe victimized by a bully can happen at any given clock of the day, by anybody and regardless of what stance in authority they may hold.I was completely shocked to have come across the Andrew Cain story. Andrew Cain was a 19 year old from Pullman, Washington, whom had a criminal history since he was a minor. Most recently, Andrew failed to appear for a court hearing for charges he received in March 2013 for a probation violation (Huffington Post, June 27, 2013). Not appearing for the court hearing, warrants were issued for his arrest. The deputy posted on the Sheriffs Facebook varlet that included a wanted poster and this statement We have decided that Andrew Cain is no longer the wanted person of the week.He is the wanted p erson of the month of June Congratulations (www. heavy. com). Andrew had received texts, Facebook messages, e-mails and instant messages about this post on the Sheriffs Facebook page about what a horrible person he was. It was not long until bogus rumors started about the charges Andrew had. According to his sister, Alise Smith she received a text from Andrew about how this has bothered him and feels that it was just too much for him to handle. Andrew Cain was in the process of turning his life around.Unfortunately, due to heartless people we will never see how Andrew Cains life could have turned out. On June 13, 2013, Andrew Cain committed suicide. Indeed, while I do feel the advanced technology we have today are very beneficial in many aspects of everyones lives. I feel that the advanced technologies that we have become accustomed to should be used with responsibility and integrity. Cyber-bullying in a nutshell is a deadly game to play. Cyber-bullies do not see what harm it cause s their victim by harassing them via social media sites unless something drastic happens to their victim due to them being bullied.I really would like to ask some of the teens that have been charged in connection to these suicides if they are able to sleep at night. How the teens involved are going to feel knowing they have been a reason, why another human being being took their life? They may not think about it now, because they were able to be that cruel to someone, but what about when they are older and realize what their actions caused? I would like to ask the parents of the cyber-bullies who have been charged in the suicide cases if they had any issues growing up or any un-resolved issues that would cause them to be so hateful to another human being.What is your opinion? I am hopeful one day that the internet world will become a safe place for all children to enjoy. Where a child can go for fun and not become depressed to the point they want to take their own life, because the y have no idea how to handle all the pain and pressure of being bullied and being a teenager. I do feel so much sadness in my heart with all the young lives lost to the cruel, wasted act of other humans.