If you look around today at all of the teenagers, it seems like all of their faces are glowing, except not with healthiness orjoy. Instead, it's the artificial light of their phone and computer screens.
Sadly most of the time the word "bullying" is an understatement for cyber-bullying, as it is more like harassment. Cyber-bullyingis using technology to continually hassle someone online. No one tolerates bullying, especially schools. Schools should punish bullies that take advantage of technology.
The bullying seems to be spreading like an infectious disease, more and more kids are bullying, which results in additional kids becoming targets. According to the Cyber Bullying Research Center, one in five 11- 18 year olds have been cyber-bullied. Just because it is usually girls that are tortured, doesn't mean that boys can't be victims themselves. 16.6% of boys have been terrorized, while the girls outdo the boys with 25. 1% of them being tormented.
Cyber-bullying decreases the victim's sense of self, and they are less willing to be themselves, or to do well in sports or school. Even though the bullying has become more or less innovative, the same rules are applied if you get caught, the worse the bullying, the worse your penalty. If a teacher or adult sees a kid getting bullied, it's automatically reported. So, doesn't that mean that schools should treat cyber-bullying the same as regular bullying? Then, if schools treat all kinds of bullying the same, shouldn't they punish cyber-bullies as well?
Being bullied through technology is upsetting, and can be destructive to a person's ego. Not just because of the horrendous name-calling, but also because there are so many questions. Who is sending me this? Who else is seeing this? Why are they saying this about me? The worst thing about cyber-bullying is that individuals not directly involved in the bullying have no idea about what is true and what's not. Once it is on the Internet, you have no control over who sees it. That is why virtual bullying is so effective.
New students, parents, and school members are joining together every day to help punish cyber-bullies.
Five students from South Tama Middle School have been participating in the National Day on Writing through the AEA. Throughout this school year, the students will be working hard to complete various collaborative writing projects on a specific controversial topic. STC students are working with students from all over the state of Iowa by communicating by posting on a Wikispace. One of the writing projects was to create an editorial. The five students (Ellah Driscoll, Belle Tyynissmaa, Wyatt Hintermeister, Thayne Lamb, and McKenna Knock) were nominated by their literacy teachers. Watch for more editorials from the students upcoming in The Chronicle and Tama News-Herald.