Niti Desai Public Discourse Community Laura Ann Wilson October 19, 2013

The Blurred Line of Technology: Cyber-Bullying

If your child or a family member was being threatened or bullied using technology how would that impact your life? The dictionary definition of Cyber Bullying is the use of communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature. Bullying was already a problem in schools but when technology was added that bullying increased to new standards. The use of cell phones, gaming systems that connect to the Internet, and social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. make cyber bullying a real danger. It has become a serious problem in schools. The lines are very blurred as to how much interaction there is with technology and if the students are being monitored or given freedom to do as they please. Do you want your kids in a school where they can be harassed and bullied without a teacher or anyone else having the slightest clue because they are given freedom to use a computer? Just because it doesnt affect you doesnt mean it hasnt affected someone close to you.

If you have a Facebook account you have seen those posts being shared about students committing suicide because of being bullied in school through email, texts, and/or social media. Cyber bullying has become absolutely unbearable in schools. There are 3 specific schools that caught my attention when cyber bullying was involved. Plano West Senior High School in Plano, Texas was the first one that caught my sight. The

story was featured as a post that some of my friends had shared on Facebook. It was titled This Is One Of The Worst Cases Of Bullying Ive Ever Seen. And Its A Special Needs Child. This is the story of Shea Shawhan, Junior, at Plano West Senior High School who has been severely cyber bullied for the past eight months. Shea is 18 but due to a birth defect she has the mental capacity of a child and experiences seizures. Even with this birth defect she is leading a very well social life and plays softball and is on the cheerleading squad at Plano West Senior High. For the past 8 months she has been getting text messages to her phone mocking her of her disability and her clothes. They are not only telling her she is ugly but she is repeatedly being called a slut and telling her to go die because no one cares about her. These are two examples of pictures of texts she has been receiving from people at her school.

As you can see in the previous picture the comment god doesnt like sluts is made to Shea. After Shea received messages like this for months and months her mother decided to finally change her phone number and keep it private, but somehow they got a hold of her number again and sent her more messages.

In this message the person says that there is a website made especially for people who hate Shea at this school. I went to this site. It has been removed for inappropriateness.

You also notice that when her mother tries to take charge, the person on the other end curses at her mother for giving birth to a freak and she should just have one of her f**king seizures and die because people at west dont want her. Her mother is trying really hard to track the people that are sending messages like this to Shea, but unfortunately due to technology not only are their identities anonymous but they are using websites and apps to use untraceable numbers and are constantly sending unwanted messages harassing this poor girl.

Another story that really stood out to me was the Rebecca Sedwick story. A 12 year old from Lakeland, Florida, who just recently committed suicide after over a year of relentless cyber bullying. 15 girls bullied Sedwick, via social networking sites and chat rooms! Over a dozen girls teamed up telling a 12 year old to drink bleach, because no one would miss you. Her mother had pulled Sedwick out of school, after the year was over. She had deleted her Facebook and twitter to try and stop this nonsense, but even then the texts and messages about her had become viral and they had gotten to her new school. Sedwick received messages saying Go kill yourself and Why are you still alive? Sedwick decided to take their advice she had climbed to the top of an old cement factory and jumper to her death in Lakeland. Just a few hours before she had made the jump she had messaged a boy in North Carolina, which she had met over social media, saying she was dead and she was jumping and just couldnt take it anymore. Her body was found in later weeks. When Sedwicks body had been found Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd began to further investigate and that is how the story came about of her peers bullying her through social networking and technology. When Judd looked through

Sedwicks computer, phone, and belongings he noticed that she had been looking up several different ways to commit suicide. There were pictures of Sedwick lying with her head resting on a railroad track and pictures of razors on her arm. Rebecca had very recently also looked up on Google how many over-the-counter meds needed to be taken before there was a risk of an overdose. In Florida, there are laws pertaining to cyber bullying state that if there is concrete evidence found the girls that was bullying Sedwick may be charged with a felony of cyber stalking since Sedwick was under 16. The girls, if found guilty, would serve in a juvenile detention center because they are also under the age of 16. Here is a message one of the girls publically posted on Facebook after the death of Sedwick had reached the community. As you notice the girl is clearly stating, Yes IK I bullied REBECCA and she killed her self but IDGA!! <3. This means, Yes I know I bullied Rebecca and she killed her self but I dont give a !! followed by a heart. These girls show no remorse and they need to be punished.

This next person is a personal experience. At 9:30pm, when you get a call from one of your best friends crying and saying hes dead, he did it, he killed himself you have nothing to say. My friend Emily had called me to let me know her cousin had committed suicide. Chris was a really good student, he had lots of friends, he played sports, and he was nice to everyone. He was always there when you needed to talk. He was the first one there to help and the last to leave to make sure you were ok. He never even let us think that he was unhappy or depressed. For 3 years of his high school life there were people bullying him and making fun of him. His girlfriend and him had recently broken up and he had been saying things about his personal life to other people. They used the things they knew against him and made him feel like a terrible person. She had made references about their sex life. His personal life had now become public. For 3 years things had just gotten out of control. He was sent texts and emails from people that were formerly his friends saying he should just crash his car and let people be free of him. He should go walk into the train and just let it pummel him over! Christopher was a genuinely nice person who was drove to depression by his peers using school email and text messages to tell him to go kill himself. They used SCHOOL EMAIL to bully him. When I was in school I was terrified and always watching what I said over email because they monitored them very closely and that they could and would print them out and use them as proof in any given situation. When you think of cyber bullying, you mind normally will travel to secondary education. Thats not where it stops though; cyber bullying has reached even to college campuses. A perfect example is the story of Tyler Clementi, a student at Rutgers

University that jumped from the George Washing Bridge after his roommate spied on him. Clementi was an 18 year old who had just informed his parents, before leaving for school at Rutgers, that he way gay. At Rutgers he had found a significant other. His roommate had set up his webcam on his laptop to spy on Clementi and his significant other and posted it to twitter, encouraging other to watch it. Clementi was made fun of in his dorm and it got to the point where he jumped from the bridge taking his own life. I took the Technologies of Identity approach from the Culture and Technology book we read in class. I chose cyber bullying to define technology vs. identity as my definition. I think without technology it would be much easier to identify as you please. Makeup is used to alter ones appearance to fit within cultural norms of attractiveness and to exaggerate or emphasize gendered characteristics of appearance, such as the eyes or lips (Slack, Wise 161). In this particular scenario the makeup is the computers and cell phones that give the ability to hide behind technology and change your appearances. People use that same technology to change their appearance to bully others without ever making it known who they are. As Slack and Wise state in Culture and Technology something different, is perceived as deviant and would need to be normalized. In schools, that normality is taken advantage of by the populars and jocks. Children who dont fit the social normality are constantly harassed and bullied, and without proper supervision can be highly taken advantage of. Cyber Bullying is already spreading at an epidemic rate. It gives people the chance to say and do things that they wouldnt in person. Its easier to hit send then it is to say something in person. The lines are very blurred on what is actually being monitored in schools. Emails should be monitored round the clock. Cell phones should be

confiscated if used in school. Schools need to enforce strict rules on using computers. In this day and age it isnt abnormal to have computers in schools. Schools now offer laptops for students to use and even take home for the year to use. But if a school computer is being used to bully someone or harass a student then that student needs to be punished. Pushing a send button to hurt someone that doesnt fit the normality is no reason for someone to take his or her own life. Its about time that the blurred lines of supervision in schools are turned to solid lines before another Christopher, Tyler, or Rebecca are lost to a silly thing like Cyber Bullying.