The Effects Of Social Networking On Teenagers And Teenagers

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

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.

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

Teenagers are wanting to kill themself because of cyberbullying. For example, “39% of teens on social media have been cyberbullied. Some of the people have ever committed suicide’’(source 1). This shows that...

Cyberbullying is one of the many factors for a teen to commit suicide. Cyberbullying is the use of the internet to send harm to another person. It is a way of bullying that happens anonymously through the internet. “While cyberbullying alone is not likely to lead to youth suicide, it may worsen feelings of hopelessness in adolescents struggling with stress in their lives” (Hinduja, Sameer, and Patchin). Cyberbullying can easily be started by just making fun of someone and continuing to something more serious. People think that making a joke online is funny, but little do they know it can really affect someone. As teens, we do not fully think before typing something online and what seems like no big deal to someone, can be a breaking point for someone else. There are many movies that talk about cyberbullying and it is suppose to spread awareness about this kind of bullying. When cyberbullying became a big deal, everyone started doing something to stop it, and it is still around today but not many people are paying attention to it anymore. Most likely the suspect will harass and will continue harassing the victim till they have reached their breaking point. People bully online to make other’s feel less then they really are (Phillips). They may use hurtful words or even just

In order to understand the importance and consequences of cyberbullying, the main idea of cyberbullying must be expressed. Suzanne Phillips states that “cyberbullying like any form of bullying is relational aggression. It is intended to make the victim feel frightened, humiliated, helpless and too often—hopeless. What makes cyber bullying particularly harmful and in the case of too many young people who have committed suicide, so deadly, is the nature and virulent reach of electronic medium” (Phillips 1). Students are put in danger everyday due to the relevance of cyberbullying that surrounds them. The effects are detrimental to their health and have major impacts on the society. Justin Patchin explains that teens have unhealthy ideas when he states that “cyberbullied youth also report having suicidal thoughts, and there have been a number of examples in the United States and abroad where youth who were victimized ended up taking their own lives” (Patchin 1). Average teenagers express everyday that the effects of cyberbullying are harmful to their well being and self esteem. This causes most teens to feel worthless and makes them believe that their lives are not meaningful. Justin W. Patchin also shows the many outcomes of cyberbullying and displays that at “first, many targets report feeling depressed, sad, angry, and frustrated.

With the widespread presence of teen suicides, parents can 't help but wonder and worry, but they never find out where the child’s depression came of. A review of data collected between 2004 and 2010 via survey studies indicated that “lifetime cyberbullying victimization rates ranged from 20.8% to 40.6% and offending rates ranged from 11.5% to 20.1%” (PubMed Central) There are several specific ways that social media can increase the risk for the suicidal behavior. Cyber bullying and cyber harassment are serious and prevalent problems, as “approximately 2000 middle school children that indicated that victims of cyberbullying were almost two times as likely to attempt suicide than those who were not” (PubMed Central). Although cyberbullying cannot be identified as the only factor for suicide between teenagers, it increases the risk by intensifying feelings of isolation, instability, and hopelessness. According to the recent study, “approximately 43% of the students report experiencing cyberbullying during their lifetime, and 15% of students admitted to cyberbullying others during their lifetime” (Patchin, 2015). There are even more statistics showing how cyber bullies affect teenagers’ emotion and push them to self-destruction. Nowadays, social media has created virtual

Bullying and harassment through social media can have a major impact on one’s life. Bullying through means of social media or cyberbullying for instance, may cause feelings of loneliness, depression, rejection, unsafety, fear, hopelessness or feeling stuck in a situation, confusion, stress, feeling like you don’t fit in, and shame. Any of which may lead to avoidance of friends, social media, school and the intent to cause harm oneself or others may arise due to these feelings. In rare cases of bullying it could result in an occurrence of school shootings which has been occurring more frequently. Cyberbullying may also lead to the suicide of the student due to constant tormenting and inability to escape from harassers. However, this may be avoided

It is important to know that cyberbullying targets a lot of teens. A lot of researches say teens are a big part of cyberbullying. Since a lot of teens use social media, many of them get cyberbullied and attacked because all they use is the internet now.. In the article “How Big of a Problem is Cyber Bullying Among Teens?” it states that many teens are victims of cyberbullying: “A 2016 report from the Cyberbullying Research Center indicates that 33.8% of students between 12 and 17 were victims of cyberbullying in their lifetime.” About one-third of teens in school get cyberbullied. It is important to know that teens who are cyberbullied can feel like they cannot escape. They feel like this because

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).

The Internet has the ability to impact young people in very personal ways. For young people, who are in the developing stages of self image, popularity, gender identity, personal identity, and even ideological identity the Internet can be a positive tool or be a weapon to demean or diminish a person’s sense of self. There are a number of news stories where the results of cyber bullying resulted in a suicide. A December 2016 CNN news report tells the story of a high school student who was bullied about her weight and who eventually took her own life in front of her family (Hassan, n.d). While this is but one example, it is one too many.

Some of the top benefits of social media over the years are that it is free to anyone, the content can get out to resources virtually immediately, and it can be delivered to a wide variety of people. For these reasons, communication through social media has become an extremely accessible and convenient way to communicate. It is also popular for those who need to be in contact with others. One example that comes to mind is a teenager who goes away on a trip to visit a friend or family. They can be hundreds of miles away but still talk to their parents as if they weren’t. Another example is a person who is shy and has a hard time making friends face-to-face, social media sites are a great way to meet people and build relationships.