JULIA KULLBERG

Walking a mile in someone else´s shoes

Log in, available, open chat and message sent. It seems innocent most of the times but it can end up horrifying. A study made by bullingstatistic.org confirm that more than 1 in 3 young people have received cyber threats online, over 25 % adults and youths have been over and over again bullied through their cellphones or internet.

At this time of stage we are more likely addicted to the internet, a need to be online on the social media. Social media such as Facebook or instagram have a great influence, to have a chance to contact other people and make friends, both in real life and in cyber. A great idea made to create contact everywhere. Unfortunately, behind the great ideas filled with positivity there will always be something evil, in this case bullying on the web. Studiously searching victims and anonymously victimize them.

But then, what is cyberbullying? The definition is when a child has been harassed, tormented, humiliated or threated by another child, this could also include preteens, using the internet, digital technologies or mobile phones. It most involves minors on the both side to call the victimized cyberbullying. Once an adult increases the conversation or the harassment the definition is involved to “adult-cyber harassment”.

The methods that are used by the children are limited because the child is in need of the right technology to continue the online harassment, witch not every child is able get. The fantasy is also needed. The imagination is not the major problem but come upon such horribly thoughts about another person are not common by children.

The conversation by the victim and the felony are regularly occurring plenty of times, it is unusual that threats on the web only happens one time by a person.  The conversation can involve death threats or threat of serious body harm. Of this have plenty of children died by committing suicide.

Whose gets affected of this crime and terribly bullying method? Often the bullying starts with an imbalance of power there one person are in need to be confirmed therefore act in an aggressive way to keep the position in the relation. Because of that the insecure people are an easy target; it is not unusual if persons with a greater status are harassed for the reason of jealousy. The target or the bullied person are often felt alone and are in need of a person but there is a difficulty, the feeling of not being seen and of that are desperate of attention, are not easy to tell others to. Their feeling are kept inside and the effect could be that no one are there to help cause they do not know the victims feeling or thoughts. Another effect could be that the victim are posting pictures or messages online for attention but it could also lead to more brutal harassments. Of all these perspectives, the victim will have psychological effects far ahead in life of the in secureness by another person or even worse. 

Megan could be seen as a result of this psychological effect. Through her life Megan had struggled with overweight and her disorder ADD. She had already been apart from her peers as an effect of her disorder and low self-stem. However, when Megan began eighth grade it seemed better. Megan had started to find more friends to associate with. As an effect of that Megan had begun to work out and had created a Myspace account there she had found a boy called Josh. She thought he looked cute and it also seemed that he liked her. They wrote messages to each other and Megan’s family was well involved with her internet activities, they knew what she wrote and acted on her Myspace account. Above all, Megan had lost her girlfriend witch was her neighbor. They had an intensive connection to each other after the loss and Megan suspected the old friend for saying evil things about her to Josh. As a result of this conclusions Megan spiraled into a depression. Tina, the mother to Megan, tried to put some distance between her daughter and Josh but also to the ex-best friend. However, Megan´s ADD made her to instantly check her Myspace page there the cyberbullying continued to rise.

At Megan´s fourteenth birthday she became more instable, she had arranged a party at Myspace to celebrate her birthday but no one came because of the horrible messages they had got about Megan. Tina took the computer from her daughter and told her to go to her bedroom. Meanwhile Tina prepared the meal she felt a strange feeling in her gut, she had never felt something similar before. Unconscious Tina understood that something terribly had happened to her daughter. Tina ran up to Megan´s room and she found her little girl died in the closet, Megan had hung herself.   

Tina searched weeks after the accidence for Josh, to confront him why he had spread rumor about her daughter. Unfortunately the search was not successful until a unit of detectives rang her and told the news about Josh. They had discovered that Josh did not exist, he was a false Myspace person created by Megan’s´ old best friends and her parents.

This case are among the worst but could still happened. To prevent you child from cyberbullying is it very important to have control over the child’s internet habits. The child is also in need of preventing and security from its parents, there could also be a possibility that the child would search for comfort by it teacher. When the child consigns a person with authority it is important to understand the child and help it therefor it is in need of being seen. 

The question still stands, how can cyberbullying be prevented?  One theory explains that the parents should be aware what the child does on the internet by knowing the sites the child visit and review the sites for the best security. It is also important to talk about internet habits and about bullying online. The key to secureness is openness between children and parents.

Other theories describes what parents should do to prevent the child by knowing its passwords to social Medias, ask one of the child´s friend if it could watch over the child with its activities on social medias. Also, the parents should encourage the child to tell anything, it ought to not be ashamed of anything.         

Even though this plan can be called safe and completed, still there are few flaws in the system. With these theories, the parents have a great roll for the child and there could be difficulties by that. The child can hide information because it is ashamed or the parents can have less knowledge about social Medias. This leads to continued victimization. One alternative could be the schools assignment. The school could teach children and even parents how to act on the internet with each other to avoid harassments online and even offline, also to get a greater knowledge about the internet and how powerful it actually is. If everyone knew that and live after that philosophy it could be a nicer place to live on, online as offline.    

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo1rWtUy7pc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo1rWtUy7pc

http://stopcyberbullying.org/what_is_cyberbullying_exactly.html

http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/cyber-bullying-statistics.html

http://nobullying.com/cyber-bullying-stories/