I graduated from elementary school six years ago this year, and I distinctly remember the cyber bully presentation,
with which every middle school student is altogether too familiar. During the
beginning of the adolescent transition into the mystifying world we know as the
Internet, young people are given the spiel from the overzealous Internet cop
about the perils the Internet harbors. Chat rooms, emails, MySpace, and
Facebook were forces to be reckoned with. My very presence in a chat room and
my picture on MySpace or Facebook put me in grave danger, from which I would,
inevitably, either: a) be kidnapped, b) be insulted, c) die, or d) all of the
above.
To make matters worse, I was not
only vulnerable to online rapists, but, more often than not, the bulk of my
World Wide Web problems could manifest themselves in the form of online
interactions with my peers. Apparently, old-fashioned insults and bullying were
so last century. The twenty-first, however, is responsible for making cyberbullying
vogue. Frequently, the bullying is delivered anonymously. What happened to
courageous blacktop recess tyrants you might ask? Apparently, they were left in
the nineties next to velour tracksuits and replaced with egocentric tweens
whose weapons of choice happen to be a keyboard and a mouse.
As social media plays an
increasingly major role in our lives, we are forced to take a closer look at
cyberbullying. Does cyberbullying have to be deliberate? Does it even have to
be direct? Is it possible that social media is the most taxing force on our
self-esteem? Take a moment to really think (and let’s be honest with ourselves,
folks) about how frequently we use our cell phones, the rascal behind wasted time,
to scroll through Facebook, Twitter, and, my kryptonite, Instagram. We
literally spend hours a day on our phones, primarily peering through narrow,
filtered windows into the lives of our peers and people we do not actually know
personally, yet have deemed cool or hip because of their impeccable
follower-to-following ratio and their use of the Lo-fi filter.
The problem with social media is
that we only see what the producer wants us to see. That is the perfect,
heavily filtered and processed photo of his/her friends and he/she, the
flawless selfie, or the plate of forty-two dollar fettuccini alfredo from that
new five star restaurant, at which we have been dying to dine. Fortunately for
both the producer and us, we do not see the photo of he/she devouring a corn
dog on a blistering day in July all while accumulating a fairly thick ring of
sweat around his/her muffin top. God bless free will.
This Christmas break, I lost count of how
many times I stumbled across a picture of tan legs posed on a lounge chair overlooking
a Caribbean body of water. Whether we consciously or subconsciously know it, Instagram
and Facebook breed jealousy. We all wish we were straddling a lounge chair,
sipping a piña colada, and being fanned by a
hot beach worker. The question is does that jealousy deplete self-esteem, which
in turn knocks over dominoes until we find ourselves in a state of depression,
or does it incline us to retaliate by posting our own photographs to compete?
Neither result is especially heartwarming. Whether we care to admit it, social
media is responsible for pangs of jealousy. It forms a direct link into the
lives of others, which we compare to our own. Ranking things is basic human
nature, and as such, it is inevitable that it will occur. If our situation does
not meet our expectations, but other people’s do, we hold ourselves
responsible. Is it totally inappropriate to call this a form of cyber bullying?
While it is not deliberate, it is harmful to many teenagers. It creates
insecurity and fosters an unhealthy competitive nature.
There is little we can do to resolve the
problem because they usually are not deliberate attacks. However, the idea that
our “innocent” posts can negatively impact people does provoke some serious
personal contemplation. Do my social media accounts accurately portray who I
am? Am I posting something to make others jealous or because I want my family
and friends to see a cute picture of me on a beach? What are my motives behind
my social media? If you can honestly say you only post as a means to connect
with family and friends, kudos to you. For the rest of us, we need to
reevaluate what is truly important in life, and where and when our values
strayed from what we actually believe in our hearts. In the end, all that
matters is that we made a lasting impression on those with whom we came into
contact, not how many likes we got on that picture of a strawberry mojito with
a twist. Although, it did get 142 likes. So, beat that.
Cheers,
Jack
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