Dear Future President,

Everyday, students and people all over the world are bullied or cyberbullied. This day in age, you can find just the littlest imperfection or insecurity in someone and tear them down. This is a problem that we need to change. Cyberbullying and bullying make people and or students feel that they don’t fit in and don’t belong here. Despite, that the 35 out of the 50 states already have cyberbullying laws, my partner and I believe that there should be laws for all 50 states. We think you should take cyberbullying laws into consideration because we believe it’s a very serious topic. Cyberbullying is the use of internet or other digital devices. Bullying is insulting or name calling someone to the face.

Other people don’t believe bullying online or to the face is that big of a deal. Many people and children have to face these problems and don’t know what to do about them. 76% of teens/children around the world are being bullied. You, yourself as the future president should change this. Even if you can’t make it a law in other places and cyberbullying rates have gone down since 2007, my partner and I would really like you to take this into consideration. Some people online don’t understand or think about the dangers of the internet. Most of the only people who care are their parents. In the article ‘The Cyberbullying Problem Is Overhyped’, the author Tim Cushing says “42% of kids have been bullied while online. 1 in 4 have had it happen more than once. 35% of kids have been threatened online. Nearly 1 in 5 have had it happen more than once. 21% of kids have received mean or threatening e-mail or other messages. 58% of kids admit someone has said mean or hurtful things to them online. More than 4 out of 10 say it has happened more than once. 53% of kids admit having said something mean or hurtful to another person online. More than 1 in 3 have done it more than once. 58% have not told their parents or an adult about something mean or hurtful that happened to them online.”

Cyberbullying is a very important issue. Over thousands of children across the USA have been cyber bullied or bullied. In the article ‘Cyberbullying is Dangerous’, Suzanne Phillips says “Once again cyberbullying has resulted in the suicide of a child; This time the victim was Rebecca Sedwick, a 12-year-old girl who was at times “terrorized” by as many as 15 girls who ganged up on her and picked on her for months through online message boards and texts.” If you yourself were to be bullied online and ganged up on, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be here either. If we want to enrich America and expand our communities you as the president should make cyberbullying laws and take more actions. If you don’t do anything, our population will decrease dramatically. Something you should do about this is monitor what people post on the internet. Especially comments. Suicide is not an option or a solution. It’s bad enough that children and teens all over the world have to deal with this to their faces. Social media isn’t safe anymore, in fact it was never safe. Each person that has been cyberbullied is too afraid to tell a parent or a trusted adult because they don’t want it get worse. Most often when they tell, the bully always finds out and it gets worse. Language that is being used could become more vulgar and things they say and threats could as well.

Although bullying is a real issue, some believe that it’s less important. If someone is bullied, they should tell a parent or a trusted adult. But not all of the time the adult will respond the way they should. Most adults will approach the principal or the guidance counselor about the child’s problem. When most teachers react, they will have a meeting with the bully’s parents or in some way tell the child to stop. In some cases, the teacher will respond in a “We’ll take care of it” way and never do or a “Sometimes that happens” way. According the video Bullied, Jamie told his mother about his situation who then told his principal. The principal reacted in a “Boys will be boys.” reaction. After that, the bullies never were contacted until the case got so big, it went to court. Some people need to realize that bullying can get worse, so it must be defeated before it gets so bad, like Jamie’s case.

As well as being bullied in real life and not on a computer screen. Words hurt more than actions. Lots of people are bullied because of their sexuality or gender. In a situation if you were being bullied because of your gender people could call you names like lesbian, gay, bisexual, or even transgender. In the article ‘Cyberbullying’, “Girls are more likely than boys to experience cyberbullying. According to the study by the Cyberbullying Research Center, as of February 2015, 40.6 percent of adolescent girls reported having been cyberbullied compared to 28.2 percent of boys. The both genders engage in cyberbullying behavior. About 14 percent of adolescent girls and 15.5 percent of adolescent boys surveyed said they had cyberbullied someone at least once. More girls (5.6 percent) than boys (2.4 percent) admitted to spreading rumors about someone online; however, more boys (1.9 percent) than girls (1.4 percent) admitted to posting hurtful photos of others online without their permission.” This shows that more girls do it than boys.

To conclude, bullying and cyberbullying is a big problem. We believe that cyberbullying and bullying should be illegal in all states, without any exceptions. According to the previous articles we’ve read, this is a serious issue. My partner and I realize that you are very busy as our new president and we understand if you don’t give much devotion into this. But, our issue will not need much. Even the slightest amount of time given to help our innocent students would be the most we could ask for. We thank you for reading our argument, it is much appreciated. Have a nice day and good job becoming president.

Sincerely,

Chaelys Mills & Lindsay Udell