In 2006, Megan Meir was the victim of cyber bullying which led to her suicide. The mother of a former friend of Megan created a fake social network account under the name of Josh to monitor Megan online. The mother became friends with Megan, but Megan only thought it was just a boy that she knew from school. After a while, everything went from sweet talk to verbal abuse. Terms such as" Megan is a slut. Megan is Fat" were being posted all over the social network by the mother. Devastated by all this bullying, Megan was found hung in her bedroom closet a few days before her fourteenth birthday. After the death of Megan, they found out it was the mother of her former friend who was behind this cyber bullying. Megan's Father, Ron Meir stated, "That's the biggest tragedy of this whole thing. An adult did this."
Living in the 19th century, everything we do is revolved around the Internet. Nowadays more than 50% of people can’t go a few hours without going on the internet since they have developed smartphones that bring it right into the palm of our hands which makes it harder for parents to monitor their kid’s internet behaviors. Basically whatever you do is connected to the Internet, from talking on the phone, video chatting and texting. But most people do not realize that there are consequences, which relates to all of the above if not taken certain measures and precautions that would lessen the risk of such threats that might arise while using Internet. Don’t get me wrong, the Internet is a wonderful tool that benefits everyone but others who are the rotten apples in the bunch use it to take advantage of the innocent users online. In this paper, I will argue on why it is important to have certain knowledge and guidelines to follow to protect us from predators and dangers of the Social Networks.
I remember being a kid and my parents would complain that I stayed too much outside playing but now it is the complete opposite where parents are complaining about their children spending so much time inside. After all, you might think that spending time inside on the computer is safer for the child, however when the child is not aware on how to properly use the social network, dangers might arise. Many children today have merely experience cyber bullying with the increase in social networking. A child who gets bullied usually develops symptoms such as depression, anxiety and low self-esteem. Also most young teens today are using the social media to make new friends. Someone who has a thousand friends on Facebook is considered popular but in reality, out of those thousands “friends”, twenty maximum are the people who you are likely to contact, the rest is just a consumption of useless space for popularity. You are not fooling anyone by having a thousand friends. But the teens that seek out online friends are most likely predators targets. Sex offenders can easily create a fake profile to lure children into meeting them while the young victim is too immature to identify the danger right in front of them.
Sex offenders are only a percentage of the threat in this Internet world. Personal Information is something that should be taken seriously also. Reports have shown that the average person only lies about their birth date on the social networks because they are either young and want to be much older to attract a broader crowd of people or those sexual offenders with fake profiles. Beside the birth date, all the other personal information from town, cite, address, email, and phone numbers are posted correctly, which can cause harm to those users with identity theft or even kidnapping. After threats from sex offenders and identity theft or possible kidnapping, comes the psychological effects social medias have on teenage kids or even young adults. While posting a picture on Facebook or instagram, people want to look their best or capture the best moment, not for their own memorabilia pleasures, but rather to impress others. When you have people posting pictures of the lavish life and celebrities living the life of luxury, it causes a psychological effect on the users where they might feel jealousy, envy which might lead to anxiety and depression. These posts sucks you into a life where envy is number one and then you forget about whom you are and do not appreciate what you already have. People who put their whole life on the Internet are usually the victims of abuse and they need to be aware of what the reality is and it is not the Internet. I personally see the social media as a misconception. People use it to hide their true self while portraying something that they’re really not. By doing so, it is like you get sucked into a hole, where you do not realize what is reality and what is not. And when you cannot identify them, it is like being stuck in limbo and that is the real danger. While researching online, I came across a tragic news that recently happened which involved meeting up with strangers online. The title of this article is” Pregnant woman, boyfriend murdered after craigslist arrangement for sex”. Apparently the pregnant women and boyfriend linked up with a stranger through the online service craigslist for a sexual encounter. And when they met up the stranger kidnapped them, decapitated the boyfriend and strangled the pregnant woman. A few days later, police chased him and as his car crashed, he fatally shot himself. This is a statement released by the victim’s family of this tragedy.
“First and foremost we want to express our extreme love for Brooke ... and Audi (Slocum's unborn daughter), the truly innocent creation that was already so loved. We have no doubt that they are now dancing with Jesus. Yes, Brooke had made previous mistakes within the world that is online, including those that led to her involvement (with Charles Oppenneer) in this situation, Yes, the family tried to curtail, inform, protect and advise against the evils that this tragedy has brought forward. But God gave each of us free will, and that is something that no one can control. The secret part of Brooke's life that none of us knew about is a testament to that.” People need to acknowledge the reality of this. There are some sick people in this world, out in the street you can avoid them because you see them and you sense their vibe, but it is not the same through a computer screen which hold many disadvantages for the innocents and sadly many advantages for the predators.
The technology culture is rising and it is offering us advance forms of communication and interaction that the older generation never experienced. Many blame the behaviors of today’s youth on the progressing technology of social media. So can we say that social media is to blame or the mentors are to blame? In reality, many of these dangers arise because people do not properly use the Internet. All those social medias provide you with the tool to protect yourself against strangers but for some weird reason, they seem to ignore it. One of the first things to take into consideration is not to provide all your personal information, because one must know that since it is the Internet, every single word is available to the world and might be used against you. Sharing of credit card information is strictly advised against on the Internet, even through email with a close friend. Users should properly know how to limit other people’s access on their profile. Public computers and Internet accesses are a high risk for such matter. VPN, which stand for Virtual Private Network, is one tool that can be helpful to avoid hackers on accessing your location. It hides your IPN address and makes it undoubtedly difficult for some to get into your computer. This tool is recommended for users who heavily use the Internet for streaming and downloading, Trojans and worms are highly unlikely to access your computer with this tool. The companies provide you with the tools necessary to protect yourself from those who want to harm others. People will never try to acknowledge the bad in something that they enjoy doing. So I believe that to lessen the circumstances of all of the above, we should integrate classes that properly teaches you how to function and go around the internet, these classes can have a branch of psychology where you learn to have a strong self esteem and also to learn about the dangers that there is out there. It wont bring the percentage of people affected by the internet to zero but I am positive that their would be a dramatic change. The technology is here, it won’t go anywhere, it will be here even stronger for generations and generations to come, and hence this is the time to reinforce the teaching to our youth about the dangers that lies between the matrixes.