Jessica Laney : A Victim Of Cyberbullying

According to article Youth Perspective on Bullying in Adolescence, children cyber bully out of boredom. During cyber bullying, a person’s character is attacked by spreading negative rumors on social sites.Bullying takes place on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, SMS, and Instagram. One out of every four teens has experience cyber bullying, and about one out of every six teens has done it to others (Justin Patchin). Cyber bullying has been an effective way to tear ones’ image down.Cyberbullying is done with negative posting and uploading images. Just recent teens have started to photoshop (electronically alter) pictures in order to make their negative posting convincing. Some create false profiles impersonating the victim on social sites to bully peers. American rapper Juaquin Malphurs, Waka Flocka Flame, and his mother Debra Antney recently started an organization, No RIP (No Reckless Internet Posting), to fight cyber bullying. Cyber bullying claimed the life of his brother, Kayo. Kayo was not happy with what the world posted on the internet about his family. He committed suicide in December of 2013, by shooting himself. When family members searched for reasons why, they discovered the answer in his laptop. As a result of people being judgmental, we have direct, indirect, and cyber bullying.

The rate of suicide, the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally, increases each year. “More adolescents die each year from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease, combined” (Preventing Teen Suicide, 2016, p.2). These facts show suicide is a serious problem among teens. Last year, teen suicide became the second leading cause of death in the United States confirming the significant increase in teen suicides.

Cyberbullying is an ever-growing issue that occurs daily. A survey was conducted on 80 random teenagers with the topic of Cyberbullying. The survey consisted of 15.19% of the surveyors being between ages14-16, 45.57% of the surveyed were teenagers between the ages of 16 to 18, 27.85% were between the ages of 18 to 20 and 11.39% of the surveyed were above 20. The survey results showed that 88.75% of people knew someone who has experienced cyberbullying and 58.75% have experienced cyberbullying themselves. The survey also stated that 40.51% of the 10-surveyed said that they know someone who has committed suicide based on the influences online. Out of the 58.75% who

A large sum of suicides are indirectly or directly influenced by experiences with online aggression. Suicide is not an uncommon result of tormenting through social media. “The psychological impact [of cyberbullying] can be devastating, and suicide is not unknown among young victims. For some victims, the damage to their sense of dignity and emotional well-being could persist for years." (“Jessica Mendoza”) The effects of online bullying are extremely harmful to children. Any child that is having suicidal thoughts from online bullying is a deeply harmed child. Suicide in teens is not uncommon either. Jennifer Holladay states, “Our study of upwards of 2,000 middle school students revealed that cyberbullying victims were nearly twice as likely to attempt suicide compared to students not targeted with online abuse.” Online abuse it a growing problem with the modernizing society. More and more people at younger and younger ages have more access online, and to social media. This increases the online abuse, and will lead to more and more suicides in teens

This issue is relevant to the world because so many teens struggle with depression, bullying, or abuse and kill themselves over it. The website American Foundation for Suicide Prevention states that “Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US. Each year there are 44,965 Americans that die.”

“Statistics reveal that in the US approximately...nearly one million people attempt suicide each year” ("Suicide Risk Among Abused Children."). Suicide is not an act of randomness. It is a result of prolonged feelings and/ or events, which push that person to extremes they desperately want out of. Suicide rates are amongst the highest in teens, due to their lack of support systems. During these years many are trying to find-out who they are and fit in, thus many get accepted into some people’s views, but there are also a good number that get ignored and feel like they do not belong anywhere. Teen suicide can be a result of a home-life of abuse or mistreatment, psychological disorders, and lack of social support-bullying; however, through the education on the warning signs of suicide, providing more emotional outlets at schools, and creating safer environments the number of annual victims can be decreased.

The current study shows the extent of a nontraditional form of peer aggression—cyberbullying which can also be related to suicidal ideation among children and teenagers. A random sample was done in 2007 1,963 middle-school students were chosen from one of the largest school districts in the United States to complete a survey of Internet use and experiences. Children who experienced traditional bullying or cyberbullying, was an offender or either a victim that had more suicidal thoughts; and more likely to attempt suicide than those who had not experienced forms of bullying. The bullied victims was more strongly related to suicidal thoughts and behaviors than the offenders.

Suicide is reaching epidemic proportions all across the globe. What is causing such an outbreak in young adults? Most people have heard about the get help hotlines and the advertisements associated with suicide. Although we 've all heard about it, not much is being done about it. Johnson states the facts about suicide, “claiming 39,518 lives in 2011, or more than 6,889 more than in 2005” (10). This small piece of information goes to show just how much suicide has increased in the last few years. Besides being the number 10 cause of death among all ages in the U.S., it is the 2nd leading killer of adolescents, or “people between ages 15 and 19” (Peacock 1). Also, the number of completed suicides only touches the surface on the dilemma it truly is; this is because there are 25 suicide attempts per every suicide (731). What goes unnoticed is that suicide is on the rise for a number of reasons including mental illness, bullying, social media, and high expectation perfectionist teens.

Cyberbullying is a problem that has only come to light in the last few years. It has many different effects on people; it can cause depression, suicidal thoughts and actions, and effects the way students do in school. Cyberbullying is one of the top leading causes of suicide in teens and young adults (Swearer). Cyberbullying is a major problem that this country needs to get under control because it is leading to self-harm and suicide in teens and young adults. It causes an unsafe learning environment, and the victim cannot get away from the bullying because the attackers stalk them through social media accounts and their cell phones. So, how does

    Each year 34,000 people commit suicide a year - about 1 death every 15 minutes. Suzanne Phillips, professor of clinical psychology in the doctoral program of Long Island University and on the faculty of the postdoctoral programs of the Derner Institute of Adelphi University, wrote an article titled “Cyber bullying is Dangerous”. In her article she discusses Cyberbullying - what causes it and how it affects people. Suzanne Phillips states,

According to researchers, the targets of this new type of harassment are more likely to have less friends than their peers , be more isolated, and more of an outcast before and after school hours. To start off, Teens who are the targets of cyberbullying or any kind of bullying are prone to feel like they deserve the harassment they are receiving. They believe that they are not deserving of friends and becomes distrusting of anyone who wants to be their friend, wondering if it is just to learn their secrets and spread them all over the internet. Secondly, victims can experience anger, frustration, embarrassment, sadness, and severe depression, often causing a lack of focus on school work. In some cases, these adolescents have to change schools due to these jarring crimes. Finally, Cyberbullying has also been tied to delinquency, violence, drug or alcohol abuse, as well as possessing weapons on school property. “Severe, long-term, or frequent cyber bullying can leave both victims and bullies at greater risk of anxiety, depression, and other stress-related disorders. In some rare but highly publicized cases, some kids have turned to suicide. Experts say that kids who are bullied — and the bullies themselves — are at a higher risk of suicidal thoughts, attempts, and completed suicides.” (database). It is not surprising that the targets of cyberbullying would be more prone to suicidal thoughts, anxiety, and other issues because of being harassed therefore are scared to be online, or even go anywhere without feeling like everyone is teasing

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

Many victims of cyberbullying can often be introduced to depression, anxiety and sometimes worse thoughts of suicide. Bullying is not taken as seriously as it should be. There are many ways to be bullied other than face to face interaction. Another way that is possible is cyberbullying, which is the use of phones, computers, or any electronics to harass or bully people. Sometimes bullying isn't just a temporary or minor problem. Such as this scenario, if the cause of bullying is not eliminated such as inappropriate photos or videos that are online the subject of bullying can consistently come back up if not deleted causing that person the same pain they felt at an earlier time and could even ruin a job or school application. Cyber bullying is wrong because it could ruin someone's perspective on themself or their future.

There have been many studies done to answer simple questions like why kids bully or why kids commit suicide. It is believed that since cyberbullying can be done anonymously that is why more people do this because they can just get away with it (“Delete Cyberbullying - Why Do People Cyberbully?”). A very famous case of someone committing suicide because of cyberbullying, is the Amanda Todd case. Amanda posted a video about her being bullied and about her self-harm, and about a month later she hanged herself in her home. She made the video about her bullying and self-harm experience because she was being blackmailed because of pictures she sent online to someone.

There are many damaging effects on the victim when it comes to cyber bullying. As a result,the effects of cyber bullying can last a lifetime also the children who are bullied can feel inadequate. The long term effects on the victim could lead them to eventually commit suicide. Suicide is a devastating event that is a result of bullying called bullycide. Approximately every 13 minutes a teen commits suicide in the US from Jill Carson a teacher at Foley Public Schools.