Cruelty Through A Computer

As you may know, this October was declared “Anti-Bullying Awareness Month” because of the recent high rate of suicides among young people due to cyber-bullying. I was watching the news and was horrified to hear the stories of people such as Tyler Clementi taking their own lives due to their peers abusing the internet in order to bully them. Not all cyber-bullying is as visible to the public as the video that was posted of Tyler Clementi, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous. With Facebook, texting, instant messaging, Twitter, and a number of other social networks easily accessible to people of all ages, teenagers and even younger children have the capability to say whatever they want to whomever at the push of a button. This form of bullying can be even more dangerous than a physical encounter with a bully because people will very often say things online that they wouldn’t be able to say to a person’s face.

It is completely normal to want to fit in with your peers and feel accepted, but some people value popularity too highly and will put others down if it means getting to the top. There are certain social stereotypes such as being pretty, funny, or athletic that seem to make a person more “socially acceptable” in middle school and high school. Once a person feels like they do not fit into these stereotypes, their self confidence slowly deteriorates and they would give anything to just feel like they belong. But often times, those people who deem themselves the more “socially acceptable” will cut others down and make sure that they feel like they are not good enough in order to try to make themselves look good and remain the “popular” ones. Many experts believe that bullying is actually a sign of a person with major insecurities, but that is no excuse for them to treat others as if they are lesser beings. This combination of teens with an already negative self-image and peers that prey on pointing out the flaws of others causes a dangerous situation to arise. Add a computer into the mix, and it gets even worse.

If there is one concept that you take away from reading this blog post, I want it to be tolerance: tolerance for people’s differences, tolerance for what you don’t understand, tolerance for the identities of the people around you. We all have things that we would like to change about ourselves because nobody is perfect, but those imperfections are a part of your identity that you should embrace rather than try to hide. You are going to encounter people in your lifetime that will say things to you for the sole purpose of making you look bad and making themselves look good. I wish that we could make everybody see the importance of tolerance, but unfortunately not everybody will listen, and we can’t make them. But what we can do is try to stop criticizing ourselves; and even more importantly, try to ignore those who criticize us. I know that is much easier said than done, but it is a challenge that I hope you will all take on.

If you are in a situation where somebody is bullying you to the point that ignoring them seems impossible, remember that you are not alone. Here are some places that you can turn to for help:

http://www.samaritans.org/

http://metanoia.org/suicide/

http://www.wahijournal.org/?p=2479