Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is a type of bullying that takes place solely online, through mediums such as mobile phones, computers, and tablets. The most common platforms that cyberbullying occurs on are social media apps such as Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook, SMS texts, and gaming. Cyberbullying can include sending negative, false, or demeaning content about a person or persons, and can also occur through sharing personal or private information about a person that is intended to be humiliating. One of the biggest issues of cyberbullying, besides being emotionally, mentally and at times physically harmful, is the fact that social media and the web can be accessed by both family and random people. Anyone can access these negative comments or photos or videos about a person.This takes traditional bullying to the next level, as it can become more humiliating and upsetting than individual bullying in person. Another concern about cyberbullying is the fact that humiliating or personal photos or videos can be shared to anyone, and once a photograph or video is online, it stays online forever. There have been laws enforced that address the prevalence of cyberbullying, such as laws that require any school administrators or staff to report any examples of bullying, and school policies that require disciplinary action if required. 

Cyberbullying can negatively affect mental health

Cyberbullying is an important topic to me, because it has happened to me and I experienced first-hand how upsetting it was. I discovered that an anonymous person had posted a mean, false comment about me on an app called Yikyak, which is an app which is predominantly meant to cyberbully people. It was humiliating that anyone could see this comment about me, and made me feel horrible. Cyberbullying is also an important topic to me because I want to be a teacher one day, and I want to be able to support my future students as best as I can, knowing that some of them will inevitably face cyberbullying. Statistics show that 15.7 percent of high schoolers have experienced cyberbullying before. This statistic is alarming, and shows me that I will have students in my future classes that will experience cyberbullying, so I want to know how to support my students the best way I can. I know that cyberbullying can cause a lot of harm to the social-emotional development of children/ adolescents, especially during a time that they are developing rapidly. Cyberbullying can really affect the self-image and self-confidence of these children, and this can affect their self-conception for the rest of their lives. I recognize the importance of combatting this issue, as well as showing my future students that I care about their emotional and mental wellbeing. I can do this by providing my future students with mental health resources, as well as getting to know each student personally and asking how they are doing so that they know I care. I know that teachers I have had in the past who I felt really cared about me improved my experience in class significantly more than teachers who I felt did not care about my wellbeing.