After our class discussion about cyber bullying I took some time to reflect on some of my own cyber bullying experiences. As a teen I do not recall ever being a participant of these acts and I also do not recall having them done to me. Yet, in more recent years, I can recall several times where I fell victim to the bullying of others through the internet. I never thought of this as cyber bullying before, but after spending time thinking about it, I definitely think that it can be considered cyber bullying. I can count the number of times that I have been on facebook and simply closed the screen and forgot to log out, I'm sure you know where this is going...and your right. If my roommate ever sees my facebook open on my computer screen she immediately thinks that I am giving her an invitation to do as she pleases with my account. A few weeks ago as she was in the act of cyberbullying, she decided to send a relationship request to some random person who goes to Catholic who I am not even very close friends with. Once I discovered this I wasn't that upset, I actually found it kind of funny, but I hoped that I would never have to cross paths with that person ever again. Well all of my hopes went right down the drain when I found myself in Leahy trying to work on a paper. Leahy was packed as it usually is towards the end of the semester, and the only empty computer I could find was next to the guy that had received a facebook relationship request from me a few days prior. I sat down and avoided all eye contact whatsoever, the guy never said anything to me, but I can't even begin to describe how awkward I felt the whole time I was sitting there. The point of me telling you this story is that I know as we sat in class and watching the PSA about the young boy who was being attacked with cyber bullying, it was hard for some of us to relate to that kind of stuff. But, putting it into prospective into my life right now I can think of many cases where I have fell victim to cyber bullying as well as acting as a cyber bully myself (I obviously have to take revenge when my roommate alters my information on facebook). Not only did my roommates actions effect me, but imagine how that guy must of felt who received that relationship request from me, I'm sure he felt the same way I did when he had to sit next to me in Leahy when we have never actually had a conversation together. We all need to pay careful attention to what we do and say online, I know we've all heard this before, but it remains ever so true. If you learned any lessons from this post, its to ALWAYS log off of any social networking sites when you are finished using them, you never know who will be around. Although no serious damage was done in this case, there was a lot of potential at stake when I forgot to log off.
I never thought about it that as cyberbullying but I guess you are right, it most certainly is. I think we all should be careful what we do online because you never know when it will come back to haunt you. I have had people change my status to inappropriate things and then my aunts/uncles/parents questioning me about why I would post those things.
ReplyDeleteI feel like for the most part people overreact to people changing their statuses on Facebook. I guess the exception for this would be what Liz said about her relatives seeing inappropriate things. For the most part, though, its pretty easy to tell when someone has messed with someone else's Facebook page. Its basically a part of online life.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we are apart of more cyberbullying than we think. In the case of your friends changing your status to be funny, Its now not that funny to me. I think we forget who we accept as our friends and since we have so many it is hard to keep track. Personally, I think i'm going to go through all of my friends and erase the ones I communicate least with.
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