The expansion of online social networking has given society an unprecedented ability to share information, create communities, and organize social movements. We are surrounded in today’s society by sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and numerous other social media that can sometimes overtake our lives. It can cause detrimental effects on kids, teenagers, and also adults. Social media stretch out its advantages for all ages while it also has detrimental drawbacks that pose to society. One of such illustrations of the drawbacks of social media is cyberbullying. Today, Cyberbullying is one of the most popular ways to bully someone by sending threatening messages or using hateful comments or in many other ways through social media platforms. Hence cyberbullying causes low self-esteem in a person, it causes severe depression and also leads to suicides.
First and foremost, cyberbullying can stretch throughout the life of the victim at all times of day and night by causing huge damage to self-esteem. It can lower one’s self-esteem and kill their mental health which causes many other problems. Pete Davidson, who is an American comedian and actor quit Instagram because of hateful comments and bullying. He posted a paragraph describing how evil the internet can be to someone and that negativity on these platforms has made him feel bad about himself. The American actor was attacked by his girlfriend Ariana Grande fans for him commenting on Ariana’s photo with her granddad saying “what a cutie”. This not only made Pete quit Instagram but also Ariana planned to leave Instagram and other social sites. Moreover, there is cyberbullying not only to celebrities but to random people on social sites. One of the examples is that a 12-year-old girl from Colorado was bullied over Instagram by her school mates. They posted photos of her and wrote “Eww you are so ugly, why don’t you go kill yourself. Everyone would be happier that way”. With this, it broke the girl's heart and she kept her self crying for straight two hours. She also says that she is never going to use Instagram and she wishes that she could disappear so that she does not have to attend school. This shows that Self-esteem can be dragged down in a person through social media, making themselves isolate or making them want to get rid of the public.
Secondly, cyberbullying can result in major acts like suicide. Being a human, some can take the pain to some extent while some cannot and consider ending their life in order to escape their tormentors. On the NEWS website, a heading went by “New Jersey Family to sue after 12-year old daughter’s suicide”. Mallory took her own life due to constant harassment on Snapchat and Instagram by her school mates. She was constantly bullied saying she is a loser and that she had no friends. Most shockingly there were messages telling her “why don’t you kill yourself”. Mallory’s family not only took the matter to the school administration but confronted and spoke to one of the bully’s parents to help it end before something major might happen. However, with the death of Mallory and the text messages seen on the social media made them believe that the matter was never looked into and it was ignored while the bullies continued bullying Mallory. Mallory’s mom mentioned how Mallory lost interest in attending to school and she frequently kept on getting ill. She often got severe headaches and stomachaches. All this change plummeted her academic results. Therefore, the challenges that social media poses on a society can be harmful such as cyberbullying can end the lives of innocent children.
Furthermore, cyberbullying has made victims to go through severe depression which later results in suicide too. A Youtube video by Amanda Todd shares her story of how she got cyberbullied which lead to severe depression. A webcam group chat changed Amanda’s life in a few seconds. A cyberbully takes advantage of snapping photos of her breasts. Since then, the cyberbully kept on following her giving her treats of exposing her photos on social media if she doesn’t give him a good show. Her photos circulated through Facebook and since then she started getting anxiety, major depression, and panic disorders. This led her to use drugs and alcohol. Amanda tried to change school and cities but still, the cyberbully continued following her. He knows about her new school and new friends. He kept on treating via Facebook. She shares how she cried through nights and how everybody at school hated her and later was bullied by school mates with the circulating photos on Facebook. She kept on trying moving school and cities but it did not help, she was still bullied where ever she went. She was physically bullied to the point where she had to take be taken to hospital. She was still bullied which led to severe depression, which let her to cutting and later commit suicide.
To conclude, that c cyberbullying is a serious issues cause severe depression, suicidal commits and low self-esteem are social media challenges posed in society. Any harm to a person in any way cannot be accepted.
