Cyberbullying Related Suicides : Bullying, Suicide, And Self Harm

“...1 in 3 teens [have] admitted to being a victim of cyberbullying…” says child psychologist, Eden Foster, in reference to a survey, talked about in “The Dangers of Cyberbullying” by Brett Warke, that shows the absolute significance of cyberbullying in this day and age. Cyberbullying on social media is everywhere and it’s about time that someone took some action against it, and, in this case, taking legal action via prosecution may be the best way to go. Let it not be said that cyberbullying and bullying are different, infact, the only difference is the platform they take place on. Cyberbullying is done with the same malicious intent as face-to-face bullying is done with: the intent to hurt a victim in a psychological or physical way- showing

Cyberbullying is a relatively new threat, and it is very similar to traditional bullying. Despite the fact that cyberbullying and traditional bullying both share the common goal of harassment, cyberbullying differs from traditional bullying in that it does not stop at the schoolyard, and can continue when the victim is far away from the aggressor. It is just as devastating as common bullying, and sometimes is even more damaging. Professors Sameer Hinduja and Justin W. Patchin note in their journal, “Cyberbullying Creates Dangerous Stress and Anxiety”, that cyberbullying affects anywhere between 10-40% of students (contingent on their age group) (par. 1). J.D. Kelly A. Albin, in her article “Bullies in a Wired World”, defines cyberbullying as “…the ‘willful and repeated harm inflicted through use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices’” (157). It is caused by the fact that children feel their actions are mitigated when they use social media, as it creates the illusion of indirectness, and its effects range anywhere from mild depression to suicide.

Rebecca Sedwick, a 12-year-old girl, committed suicide after being repeatedly cyberbullied by 15 girls for many months. Once again, cyberbullying through social media has led to the suicide of a child. (“Phillips, Suzanne”) Social media allows hundreds of ways to communicate with others with electronic devices. Sometimes communicating with strangers, and sometimes unanimous. This idea of constant messages, notifications, and texts can be very dangerous when it comes to cyberbullying because the victim feels like they have no way out, or nowhere to hide. Social media for kids and teens ultimately has only negative effects because it leads to cyberbullying, a decrease in education, and suicide.

In society, cyber bullying is a serious problem. This issue is amplified twofold in today’s culture due to the immense popularity of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. While they provide communication between people, this communication can sometimes turn dangerous. Threatening and hateful comments are sent to victims daily. One victim, however, made an impact with her society. Grace McCormac, a teenager from Howard County, Maryland, committed suicide after receiving bitter comments from her classmates. This occurrence pushed Maryland legislature to create Grace’s Law; an act that states that bullying minors through social media is a crime and will be punished with a fine of $500 along with a year in prison (1). Grace’s Law is a law that should be supported because before the law, bullying restrictions weren’t effective, cyber bullying has increased the chances of suicide, and the law takes pressure off of the parents of victims.

When Amanda Todd took her life away at the age of 15, she was very kind and an outgoing person who everyone truly admire because of how she always helped out and she was one of a kind person. In October 10, 2012 Amanda Todd had committed suicide at her home in British Columbia, Canada due to the cyber bullying and harassment she had received from the past years. After her video went viral with 17 million views on youtube, people started to get to know Amanda Todd bullying story and it made people mind an impact of what happens when someone gets bullied on social media. Cyberbullying can affect someone by making them hurt themselves or thinking about doing something bad to their health. People still think that the people who bullied Amanda

Through her tragic story, many people became more aware of the widespread problem of cyberbullying that teenagers now face. Amanda Todd's video that was posted before committing suicide, was plastered on every media network for the public to see. Although her story was tragic, it showed others how real cyberbullying is and how others can so quickly destroy one's life. It also brought awareness to teenagers, showing how easy it is for one to take advantage of others online. Regardless of the blackmailing, Todd was greatly affected by the comments and threats that her “peers” would leave on her social networks. Todd’s story also gave a perfect example of why teens that deal with these types of things avoid school. Although most of the bullying occurs online, school forces teens to be face to face with those trying to humiliate them. Many victims end up

Fifteen year old Phoebe Prince of South Hadley, Mass., was also driven to suicide by bullies who attacked her both at school and online. After her death, bullies posted nasty comments on her Facebook memorial page. Schools have long tried to combat the problem of bullying. When the attacks happen online, however, they present a different set of challenges. Unlike a verbal assault in the schoolyard, cyberbullying goes on with no one around to see who’s sending the taunting texts and malicious Facebook postings.

“Even in death, Phoebe Prince was bullied” (Kennedy). That was the headline when a FaceBook page dedicated to Prince was hacked and filled with hurtful and derogatory comments about her. Phoebe was a regular teen that was cyber bullied to the extent that she couldn’t take it anymore. Her body was found in a stairwell, and at 15 years old, Phoebe hanged herself. Although cyberbullying is a vague concept to many, it should be made a criminal offense because it is causing suicides for youth, government intervention is the only solution, and the bully should be punished instead of the victim.

To better understand the quandary being stated, you must hear the Amanda Todd story and why she committed suicide. In the article “Amanda Todd” written by ABC news, the author summarizes about a girl named Amanda Todd on YouTube that claims “My story: Struggling, bullying, suicide, and self-harm.” Basically a stranger on Facebook blackmailed Amanda for approximately a year on a picture of pornography (Picture of Amanda Todd). Even when Amanda moved, the stranger kept stalking her by friend requesting with different surnames, and had for his picture was the same image that was used to blackmail Amanda, which eventually caused Amanda to hang herself in her home on October 10, 2012. This experience illustrates that we should be more enlightened about online tormenting since clearly, then it shows in the confine, if people knew what was going on with adolescents more often, then we would have had thousands of more still on this

Bullying has been around for about as long as mankind has, but now it has gotten worse than ever. A little bit of background detail on what bullying is, bullying is the act or form of abuse to hurt another person making or causing bullying to be linked to a numerous amount of cases of suicide and depression. Bullying is caused by the littlest and stupidest of things but sadly it causes the most catastrophic and devastating effects.

The playground bully is a classic figure in the life of children. Shoving, pushing, pinching, name-calling, and dirt-throwing are some of its favorite pastimes. In the modern world, however, bullying is moving to another arena, one much more sophisticated and secretive than the jungle gym. Bullying that takes place online, or cyberbullying, is a growing area of concern among the younger generations. Recent events have thrown cyberbullying, rather unceremoniously, into the spotlight. After being relentlessly tormented online for ten months, Rebecca Sedwick, a twelve-year-old girl from Florida, committed suicide by jumping from the roof of a defunct concrete plant on September 10, 2013. Two teenage girls, Katelyn Roman and Guadalupe Shaw,

To this day, the case of Amanda Todd has been  known by many people as one of the worst acts of cyberbullying. At this point, many people know about the Amanda Todd catastrophe. The 15-year old from English Columbia, Canada posted a help video on YouTube utilizing note cards to detail the torment she persisted from cohorts and outsiders in the wake of a noteworthy video visit photograph being discharged to her Facebook companions and others by a blackmailing stranger. She got discouraged and restless and explored different avenues regarding medications and liquor. She cut herself and had no less than two past endeavors at suicide. Individuals remarked on her Facebook page that she ought to invest more energy to kill herself Numerous understudies have worked out note cards and taken to YouTube to recount their story. The dread that she could show was to help other people who are battling with the normal trials that go with the high school years and can feel that suicide is the best way to convey complete consideration to their

The purpose of my study would be to see the correlation between cyberbullying and youth suicide ideation and attempts. This study aimed to examine adolescents’ experiences with cyberbullying because, “victims of cyberbullying often report feeling frustrated, angry, and depressed" (Patchin & Hinduja, 2010). Cyberbullying can have a negative impact on a youth’s life and by conducting this study we can gain a better understanding of how cyberbullying manifests itself in adolescence 's behavior, including suicidal thoughts and attempts. I would use a mixed methods approach to examine various aspects of cyberbullying, including students’ involvement in cyberbullying, reporting behaviors, and suicidal ideation or attempts. To gain more detailed information on the effects of cyberbullying on youths ' suicidal ideation and attempts, I would utilize both quantitative and qualitative data. Since cyberbullying itself is a complex issue combining both quantitative and qualitative data can help to enhance the theory of the research.

Cyber bullying is becoming a bigger and bigger problem on social networking sites. There have been quite a few teenage suicides in which cyber bullying seems to have played a role. In at least one case, the suicide of Alexis Pilkington, the bullying kept going on her tribute page even after her death. (Glor) “Cyber-Bullying can cause the victim to become chronically depressed and to experience a complete loss of self-esteem. A short exposure to Cyber-Bullying can have long term effects. It can result in Cyber-Bullying Suicides.” (Cyber-Bullying Suicides - Cyber Bullycide Victims ) It has many forms such as degradation, harassment, cyber stalking, impersonation, flaming (using vulgar and angry language to start fights with the victim), password theft and hacking accounts, posting photos or videos, among several others. (Cyber-Bullying Suicides - Cyber Bullycide Victims ) Bullying has been around way before the internet, but now that it is online, rumors, pictures or other forms of cyber bullying make their way around the community much faster so it is easier to humiliate someone in front of more people. “In the Internet era, it appears there are more people interested in spewing hate than in countering it. On the social networking sites and on YouTube, inflammatory, hate-filled content overwhelms the limited efforts to

While cyberbullying affects each child differently, there has been a clear correlation between victims and non-victims and their self-esteem. In one study, bullied victims had less self-esteem than those who were not bullied online. Additionally, it was reported that victims of cyberbullying were thirty percent more likely to think about committing suicide (Cyberbullying Research Center, 2012). With the lack of parent supervision, it was found that those who spent more than three hours per school day on social networks were 110% more at risk to be a cyberbully victim as compared those who do not spend as much time online (Gilkerson, 2012). What may be worse is the fact that majority of those bullied online do not tell their parents or an adult about what occurred. Despite the fact that most adolescents state that bullying occurs more offline then online, cyberbullying is still a real and large threat to the youth of America (Lenhart, 2007).