Opinion: Bullying over social media is becoming a bigger issue

Before Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram came into teenagers lives, bullying had face-to-face contact. You always knew who the bully was. But in modern society, kids are being more cruel than ever because of social media.

Unfortunately, bullying has always been an issue. Children from the 70s knew bullies as people who took your lunch money. Children from the 90s knew bullies as people who would make fun of your dancing skills.

Children in our society know bullies as the people behind the computer screen. People think that social media is a way to communicate with your classmates. While in reality, social media is actually a way to disguise yourself.

With any smart phone, you can get Q&A Apps such as Ask.fm or Yik Yak. Many teenagers have those apps to bullying other teens. With Ask.fm, you can ask anonymous questions to anyone. Some people could say, “Your hair looked pretty today”. Instead, teens send questions to bring the other person down.

Because of these cruel anonymous questions, suicide has gone up 30%  for teens since 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Sadly, bullies bring people down to make themselves feel better.

 In 2011, ABC released a TV movie titled, “CyberBully,” which was about a girl who is being cyber bullied by her classmates and her best friend. Teenagers had the chance to see the effects of cyber bullying, but that did not change teens from cyber bullying. People can make movies, websites, or books about cyber bullying. Disturbingly, it will not stop children from bullying.

No one understands why children take time to bring others down. Sometimes, the children do not even know why they are doing it. However, most teens can say they have been cyber bullied. Unfortunately, bullying over social media is never going to stop, although there are laws in some states to get justice for the victims of cyber bullying, it’s not going to stop bullies.

Besides that, cyber bullying is still going to be happening. If the internet shut down for a day, bullying would still be going on. Can we all just be nice and learn to help each other?