Cyber Bullying

Cyber bullying

We live in a world where people think it is acceptable to bully others and get away with it. Today, I am here to convince you of why bullying is NOT acceptable. In previous years, bullying was easy to avoid. If someone came up to you and threatened you or said something to provoke you; you could simply walk away, but with today’s new technology it is no longer that simple. This new type of bullying is known as ‘cyber bullying’. Cyber bullying can take place anytime, anywhere and to anyone.  It is because of this that some teenage students are scared to go on social networking sites, or are even scared to go to school because they are afraid that the teasing may continue off the internet just as it does on.

Statistics say that almost 43% of students have been bullied online and at least 1 in 4 of those has had it happen more than once. It also states that over 80% of teenagers in Australia own and use a mobile phone regularly, making it the most common medium for cyber bullying. No one has the guts stand up to these bullies, so they continue to make the victims life hell until he or she does something about it. Unfortunately, cyber bullies intimidate the victim so much that they are too scared to let anyone in so it can go on for months or even years.

Bullies have 24 hour access to these sites which is making it that much easier for people to bully others around the clock. There is no way of escaping cyber bullying. This has a dramatic effect on the decreasing the number of students that want to attend school on a daily basis.

Cyber bullying affects many adolescents. Cyber bullying involves using technology, like mobile phones or the Internet, to harass another person. Cyber bullying can take numerous forms including: Sending mean messages or threats to a person's mobile phone or Facebook account, spreading rumours online, posting threatening messages on social networking sites, stealing a person's account information to break into their account and send hurtful messages to another, pretending to be someone else online to hurt another person, taking bad pictures of a person and spreading them through text messages or social networking sites, sexting, or circulating sexually suggestive pictures or messages about a person. These are only a few ways in which people can be bullied over the internet.

The Catholic Religion is completely against cyber bullying at does not accept it. Students attending a Catholic school should also practice this and not be scared to face up to cyber bullies or any bully! If we don’t stand up to them now, it will only get worse.

Statistics show that over 70% of students report they see regular cyber bullying online and only 1 in 10 of those will stand up to one. If it were you getting bullied online, would you like someone to stand up for you? Because I know I would. If you see someone getting bullied, do the right thing and either report the bully and stand up to them. Bullying is becoming too common in todays society and its time something is done about it.  

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