Wikipedia
defines cyber bullying as the use of information technology to repeatedly harm
or harass other people in a deliberate manner. Twitter is the only social media
site where I am active enough to notice what happens most of the time so that is
where I discovered this.
The
topic is never important, whether someone knows the person is not the issue
heck whether someone has the right to comment about someone else’s life does
not matter. Day in day out, I stood by and watched while someone got torn to
pieces online (Still do, Sigh). It might be for 5 minutes, 2 hours or a day but
there is always someone getting picked on.
Over
the past weeks or so, I have been actively thinking about what happens on my
timeline *although sometimes I will follow the bullying to wherever it is* and
3 thoughts ALWAYS run through my mind whenever cyber bullying happens;
1. Thank God
that’s not me.
2. One day that
will be me, it’s only a matter of time.
3. When will I
stand up to these bullies?
I
have been in a number of online arguments that turned into cases of cyber
bullying and the coward that I am crawls back to the hole from which I came but
this did not stop the person(s) from going on with the insults. I have seen
people who have stood up for themselves and still the bullies did not stop harassing
them so as far as I can tell, there is no formula.
I
have made an observation that cuts across for most of these bullies; they have
harassed very many people and not many are willing to stand up for those being
bullied because these bullies usually then turn their insults onto the knights
in shining armor. It’s pretty much downhill from there and sadly I am one of
those who have never stood up for someone. Every time someone is bullied, I tell
myself that next time I will say something and yet here we are.
I
have questions to which I need answers before I will probably ever be able to go
to war with cyber bullies. Does harassing other people give them pleasure? Are
they paid to do it? What do they achieve from harassing people? Were they
always that way or nah? Are they aware that they are hurting people? Is it
deliberate or subconscious?
I
actually have many more questions but finding the answers to these will help
draft a strategy of sorts on how to begin the end of cyber bullying!
What
have you done about cyber bullying?
