The term cyberbullying refers to the bullying, threatening, humiliating or harassing of children and adolescents through the use of the Internet, mobile phones or other digital technologies by their peers. According to the American organization National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Centre, 30% of young people have been victims of bullying. For some time now, however, this phenomenon has not been limited to schools or the street. It has now also entered the online space.
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According to statistics, suicide is the third most common cause of death among young people, with 4,440 cases recorded in America each year. More than 14% of young people in middle and high schools in the country have thought about the possibility of suicide, while 7% have attempted it.plays Cyberbullying a significant role in this phenomenon and the numerous cases that come to light every day prove it. These examples describe the problem in the most convincing way and it is important to share them so that its true dimensions become known. Let's look at some of the things that, unfortunately, have led to young people's suicides.
The Ryan Halligan
In 2003 , Ryan Halligan 's parents , John and Kelly, shared their concerns about their son's learning abilities on their personal website. This resulted in his school placing him in a special education program for people with learning disabilities and, gradually, isolating him from the rest of the students. The problem began when he began a supposed friendship with a classmate of his same age, who managed to gain his trust.
So, when Ryan shared a sensitive personal story with him, his new “friend” used it against him to spread the rumor that Ryan was gay. The harassment continued until the summer of 2003. At that time, Ryan believed he had made a new online friend through AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), a particularly beautiful and popular girl at his school.
In reality, however, she was also in cahoots with the previous one, as well as with other classmates, in order to extract more personal information from him via the Internet and share it with the others in the chat. Unfortunately, all of this was revealed to young Ryan, resulting in him being found hanging in his bathroom at home a few days later. After death , John's father found a large number of messages on his son's computer and as he stated, "the danger of technology was far greater than all the dangers he was trying to protect him from."
Ultimately, no one was held legally responsible, as the legal framework at the time did not provide for the case of online threats leading to suicide. Seven months later, Vermont Governor Jim Douglas signed a new Suicide Prevention Act (ACT 114), which is still in effect today.
The cases of Jessica Logan and Hope Sitwell
Jessica Logan, an 18-year-old, sent a nude photo of herself to her boyfriend. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, the photo was sent to hundreds of teenagers at at least seven schools in the Cincinnati area after the couple broke up.
According to the University of Alabama 's cyberbullying website , the cyberbullying continued on Facebook, Myspace, and via text messages. After the issue escalated, Jessica committed suicide by hanging.
About a year later, 13-year-old Hope Sitwell committed suicide by hanging herself after a photo of her breasts, which she had also sent to her boyfriend, was shared with students at six different schools in Ruskin County, Florida, friends and family told CNN. Hope never told her parents about the “Hope Hate Page” she had started on MySpace, which led to even more severe online bullying.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Jessica's parents sued the school and the Montgomery Police Department for failing to protect their daughter from cyberbullying. In February 2012, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed House Bill 116, also known as the "Jessica Logan Bill," which introduced new provisions against cyberbullying.
Although the stories are particularly sad, they are a constant reminder that cyberbullying is a problem of enormous proportions. There are ways to protect ourselves and our children from this phenomenon. Protecting the security of our electronic data, providing proper information and supervising the activity of minors on the Internet is a start. In a subsequent article we will see in what ways parents can control the electronic activity of their children.
Source: digitallife.gr
