Reader's Digest ; The Rise of Cyber Bullying

Nowadays, Internet can be easily access at home or anyone that has a computer and an Internet connection. With that, it gives more opportunities for people to use the Internet, especially children and teenagers these days. It seems like without a computer with Internet access for a kid, it is very hard to survive. And with that, the word cyber bullying comes in to mind of anyone who uses it. With Internet usage increasing, so has cyber bullying as studies reports shows. And there are much more people invading into the life and privacy of their friends or classmates.
News of teenagers taking their own lives with examples such as Ryan Halligan and Gail Jones have shown just how horrific cyber bullying can turn out to be. But still, this terrible thing still continues, even now, people all over the world are facing this. Not all of them, but considering that there are computers and Internet everywhere in the world, there will be quite a lot of people who are being harassed by this. People who are the bullies of these victims are usually their classmates, friends or even their very closed ones such as their siblings. And since the bullies always appear anonymous, the victims do not know who they are and thus is unable to sue them. And the victims are unable to avoid such things as they need to use the computer almost everyday. The computer is like their heart to them. Without it, they are unable to survive.
My heart really goes out to all the victims of this cyber bullying as cyber bullying is much worse than playground bullying. Because for playground bullying, the bully and its victim will have to come face to face for the bully to bully its victim. Thus the victim will know who to bully after that. But for cyber bullying, it is impossible to avoid everyone as you will still need friends. But for these victims, they will have lost trust and confidence in their friends as they do not know if their friends are the ones bullying them online.
To me, bullies are the most coward people living in the world. Why do they need to bully their victims or pick on the weak ones when they have not offended them in any way? I do not see any pleasure in seeing them do so. But unless they themselves have a very big problem, which is to see their victims suffer in agony and they enjoy the process of it. And now, in the world of bullying comes something even worse and much more horrific, that is cyber bullying. In cyber bullying, you will never know who your bullies are. Like i said, bullies are already the most coward people and to add on now, cyber bullies are far more cowards than the normal bullies. This is because they hide behind the computers and start bullying their victims like no ones' business. If they really want to bully, why not bully them right in their face? At least the victims know who they are facing with. Adding on to the victims' stress, the cyber bullies are much more cruel in their words teasing and making fun of them. They even start swearing at them too. But there must be a reason why the bullies want to make their victims suffer in such a terrible state.
The bullies should know their limits or they should just stop this nonsensical act of theirs. I really feel that bullies are around because they themselves are either scared of the one being bullied or they face so problems or troubles and wish to let off their stress in such a way. If that is just so, they should just keep a clean sheet and not create so much trouble and unhappiness. And I feel that the victims should learn how to cope with the stress if they want to continue using the computer as they do not want to lag behind as the computer is one of the most hi-tech communication around now. If they do not know how to cope with this cyber bullying, they should just not even touch the computers so that they will not take their lives away. Every life is precious and no one should take this for granted.

Accomplished by : Clarissa Ng (13)