Cyberbullying and Suicide - Lucia U.
Cyberbullying is a big problem, and sometimes it can lead to suicidal thoughts and depression.
Dear Future President,
When you are in your first term as president you will face many problems. The problem I would like to communicate to you is cyberbullying and suicide. Cyberbullying is already a big problem and it can lead to suicidal thoughts. It sometimes it gets so bad that people act upon those thoughts. Cyberbullying is a form of bullying that exists online. It lets people anonymously say mean and hurtful things to someone else behind a screen. With this rise of new social media platforms such as Instagram, and Snapchat, there are even more ways to get away with cyberbullying.
My position on the subject is I believe cyberbullying is horrific because law enforcement can’t identify the person that is the bully, and according to dosomething.org, 81% of teens agree that bullying online is easy to get away with. cyberbullyhotline.org says that suicide is the third leading cause of teen deaths in the U.S. Young girls are more likely to have experienced some form of cyberbullying online, they are bullied psychologically, with hurtful comments on social media. Young boys are more likely to post mean videos or pictures online.
In Amanda Todd’s case it was a man who was cyberbullying her. She was the victim of cyberbullying. Then, later committed suicide (Wikipedia). She was a girl who made mistakes online and because of one person, those mistakes were brought up again and again (Wikipedia). She moved schools because of that, and the same person that bullied her brought them up again. She was cyber bullied, and physically bullied, and she couldn't take it anymore. She had been hospitalized several times. She also had reported that she had anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. Amanda had also taken counseling because she was bullied so bad. She also had made previous attempts at suicide, with cutting herself twice (Wikipedia). She also tried to kill herself by drinking bleach, they rushed her to the hospital, where she had her stomach pumped. On October 10, 2012 Amanda Michelle Todd committed suicide (cyberbullying.org). It was reported to the news that she hung herself, but the exact cause of her death was not released (Wikipedia).
What I think should be done about this is to give police training classes on how to deal with cyberbullying and suicide cases. I also think that in each police station or sheriff's station there should be an officer that is dedicated to just cyberbullying cases because those cases are brought up more and more and they are becoming increasingly serious. That officer would have been to a class that teaches and trains police officers how to deal with cyberbullying. When a cyberbullying-suicide case is brought up to law enforcement, they rarely act upon it, because they are not trained on how to handle it and they sometimes have bigger problems to deal with (“Ten percent of police officers reported investigating an average of 2 cyberbullying cases during the previous school 2012 year.”(cyberbullying.org)). I would also like the next president to insert classes into the public schools of America that teach about cyberbullying, and ways to handle and prevent it.
Sincerely,
Lucia U.
Sources:
- http://cyberbullying.org/law-enforcement-views-of-cyberbullying-and-sexting
- http://www.meganmeierfoundation.org/cyberbullying-social-media.html
- https://nobullying.com/bullying-suicide-statistics/
- https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-cyber-bullying
- http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/bullying-and-suicide.html
- http://www.cyberbullyhotline.com/07-10-12-scourge.html
- https://www.stopbullying.gov/blog/2013/02/27/research-brief-suicide-and-bullying
- http://stopcyberbullying.org/whats_the_law/law_enforcement_purpose.html