Social Media Has Taken The World By Storm

Social media itself is a huge danger to society. It causes many suicides within the world because of the cyberbullying and spreading of rumors. “Recent studies have shown that one out of four teens have been the victims of cyberbullying and one out of six have admitted to having cyberbullied someone” (Trautner 1). The internet and social media is supposed to be used to communicate with friends and for searching information, “Kids use technology different than their parents do. Sometimes it is hard for adults to understand that this can even be a possibility” (Trautner 1). It is not supposed to be used to bully someone, especially not to the point where the victim would think about suicide. “One of the statistics that has been highlighted within this news coverage is the threefold increase in the suicide rate for girls ages 10 to 14. The rates for girls in this age group increased from 0.5 to 1.5 per 100,000 during this time period. The increases for boys in this age group were not as high, climbing from 1.9 per 100,000 during 1999 to 2.6 per 100,000 in 2014” (Olsen

Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are huge contributors to cyberbullying. These social network sites grant their members the privilege to engage in the actions of the attacker which is a menace. A majority of the cyberbullied population have committed suicide due to the abusive comments. Cyberbullying has gone into a hyper drive with new devices and faster types of social media.

As the drastic increase of social media networks has increased, so too has the cyberbullying prevalence. Merriam-Webster defines cyberbullying as the electronic posting of mean-spirited messages about a person often done anonymously. Kassandra Gahagan and her fellow colleagues studied cyberbullying among students and its outcomes. Studies show higher rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors with victims of cyberbullying, along with higher rates of depression, anxiety and paranoia (Gahagan, Vaterlaus & Frost, 2015). While cyberbullying can be both intentional or unintentional, it is a negative process which effects the victim. This includes comments, posts without consent and messages. The study conducted sought to determine the prevalence of cyberbullying among young adults and the negative outcomes through asking three questions.

It had been said by Reed, Cooper, Nugent, and Russel (2016) that, “Evidence supports that cyberbullying can contribute in the development of adolescent depression” (40). Those who are diagnosed with depression can be given medication to help cope, and although it is good for the pharmacies, it is not good for his or her mental health. With cyberbullying and social media effecting one’s mental health with depression and possible suicide, it is important that people know the correlation of the two.

Causes of suicide vary but as technology advances new causes are apparent. Social media plays a major role in causes of suicide. Technology allows cyber bullying to happen frequently and recur until something or someone stops it. Victims of bullying often think they have no way out of their situation or feel like there is no help. People with suicidal thoughts struggle either mentally, physically, or emotionally. “Three million children are absent from school each month due to bullying. Twenty percent of those bullied kids have suicidal thoughts” (Bullying and Suicide, 2016, p.1). Media’s such as snapchat, instagram, twitter, or facebook all provide factual information about previous cases of suicide. Cyberbullying is a serious problem especially among adolescent girls. Girls are more likely than boys to attempt suicide due to cyberbullying, because girls are struggling to find themselves as a person (Bichell, 2013, p. 3). Any form of negativity or put down affects them, and who they are trying to become.

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

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.

 Detail 2: How the Internet/Social Media Has Had an Impact on Suicide in Young Adults

Initially, social media is commonly used as a weapon to attack others on their opinions or simply because they despite other people. For instance, cyber bullying has caused huge problems ever since social networks have started becoming popular. “Nearly 43% of kids have been bullied online. 1 in 4 has had it happen more than once,” (“11 Facts about Cyber Bullying” www.dosomething.org). This is more targeted at teenagers and children because they are unaware of the harmful things they might say over the internet. To illustrate, cyber bullying can become a very serious issue when a minor commits suicide. “Bully-related suicide can be connected to any type of bullying, including . . . cyberbullying, and sexting, or circulating suggestive . . . about a person” (“Cyber Bullying & Social Bullying” http://www.bullyingstatistics.org). It’s the parent’s duty to filter the internet. Based on this information, social media is not necessarily safe, anyone can become a victim

Cyberbullying has been sighted has having been a factor in several published teen suicides or attempted suicides over the past year. Children have killed each other and committed suicide after having been involved in a cyberbullying incident. (Stop Cyberbullying)

(Attention Getter) Look around at your peers. Would you ever think about how many of them wish they were dead? When 17.7% of high school student in the U.S. say that they have seriously consider committing suicide (CDC, 2015), we need to seriously address why this is happening. The pressures of life at our age are very apparent. However, they are not so difficult that 4,135 teenagers a year should be committing suicide. The rate of teenage suicide has tripled since 1950, but why? Well, to answer that question, there is a large amount of evidence that the Internet and social media can influence suicide-related behavior.

Suicide and accidental death from self-harm were the third leading cause of mortality in adolescents aged 10- 19 years of age in 2015, resulting in 67,000 deaths (world health organization). Many cases have have been reported in the local news, online, and through use of social media websites such as: Facebook and snap chat. There have also been multiple cases of youths that have posted their suicide live online. This is clearly a cry for help, if only someone was there to provide some form of assistance, could these cases have been prevented? This is a very important crisis that affect families, communities, and health care professionals worldwide and therefore deserves to be further discussed.

Many cyber chats, although good for online communication however also has the potentials to cause emotional distress. Insults, profanity, humiliation and much more are some of the causes of which resulted many people to depression, suicide to ‘get out of this misery’. Through social networking, online reputations are being humiliated through verbal communications or offensive images that are being posted up onto social networking sites, such as Facebook. Chanelle Rae, a 14-year-old former student at Geelong’s Western Heights College, took her life on Friday the 17th of July 2009 in another cyber bullying incident, of which Chanelle’s mother, Karen reported to 3AW radio on the 21st of July 2009. Her mother reported, ‘she wanted to die because of the message that was given to her that night.,’ This highlights the fact that lives can also be lost while having the benefits of social networking on Facebook, Bebo, Twitter and much more. Thus shows that social networking can have a severe impact on many of our lives through what we say or post online.

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

Half of all young adults have been a victim of cyber bullying; that means that half of young adults are at risk of committing suicide as a result of using social media. Is the use of social media worth a life? By reducing the usage of social media by young adults bullying will decrease and the suicide rate will be reduced.