Don't laugh at me, don't call me names, don't get your pleasure from my pain

The game has changed when it comes to bullying due to advancements in technology. Even though most bullies are not physically hurting kids anymore, cyber bullying has been shown to be just, if not more effective than physical bullying. When looking at the packet, "When Cyberbullying Turns Deadly," there are many cases where kids are cyberbullied into suicide. The reason why cyber bullying is so effective is because it is so public. Instead of a kid being pushed into a locker, the whole school can find out that a kid is gay, bisexual, or a lesbian. Inner secrets can be unleashed to everyone, which makes everything much more embarrassing. More kids verbally abuse kids by cyberbullying, rather than physically abusing a kid because it is not face to face. Anyone can do it because all you have to do is send a text or write a message on the Internet with no repercussions from the kid that is being bullied.

One case that was mentioned in the packet was the suicide of Jeffrey Johnston. Johnston was a different looking kid in middle school because of his height and long hair that he was growing out for Locks of Love, which were some of the reasons for why he was consistently picked on. Johnston was picked throughout middle school and through the beginning of high school. He was called a stalker and verbally bullied online after breaking up with a girl, and someone hacked into his video gaming account and wrote many rude comments. He never could get over all of this abuse, and he later hanged himself in his room. Because it is so easy to continue on verbally abusing someone online, kids do it and because it is so frequent, it ends up being more affective than physically bullying.

After doing research on some of the cases read in the packet, and other cases relating to cyberbullying outside of the packet, the main question that is raised from the suicides is whether it was the cyberbullying that caused the suicide. Jeff Glor of CBS News was reporting on Alexis Pilkington, who also committed suicide after numerous accounts of cyberbullying. Glor reported that about 42% of kids claim that they have been cyber bullied, which is why it is so hard to accuse people for causing suicide by cyberbullying because so many people are affected by it and do not end up committing suicide. Although laws have been passed in some states, it is still extremely hard to pin someone done for cyberbullying because it his difficult to determine whether it was the cyberbullying that caused the suicide.

In Deerfield High School I do believe that cyberbullying exists to a certain extent. Kids are made fun of and lightly verbally abused on the internet, however when it gets too abusive the school takes notice and stops it. Even though it may be outside of the schools control, that flexibility that schools are granted allows for the schools to limit cyberbullying so that kids to not kill themselves. There is also a very limited amount of physical bullying that occurs at our school, which is why I feel that our school does not have a very big bullying problem. I'm sure verbal abuse does occur at our school, but not enough for the school to make any new changes. Some of the things that the high school could do is show a presentation of people who were affected by cyberbullying, and how they were able to cope with it. A Challenge Day could also be beneficial, but it does not seem like that would be taken too seriously at our school. The best thing for the school to do is if there is ever a case where someone is being bullied too much then they talk to that person to help them cope with it, and eventually stop the bullying.