Blog #4

The past couple weeks in both class and in Lab we have talked about the dark sides of CMC. In any type of CMC communication online can lead to deceitful, lurking,flaming and lies on top of lies. Being able to hide behind a computer and say whatever one wants to, most find it easy to do so which is why so many people get away with being cruel and mean. One of the most common ways people can hurt others is cyber-bullying. Cyber-bullying is the act of intention to cause harm to someone through the use of CMC. This to me is probably one of the most darkest sides that CMC has to it because it can affect more people than we know. Its not just the person getting attacked its the people that are involved with that person that gets affected and people who do cyber-bully do not see the harms and discomfort it causes to many.

In class we had talked about Megahn Mier and how a cruel mother had disgusted herself in a new identity as a boy and started to talk to her just so she could get back at her for something she had done to her child. The mother acted as the boy for a long time, trapping and deceiving Meghan until one day she let her rage come out and tell her mean things such as she wasn't wanted to needed. Meghan unfortunately had committed suicide due to emotional harm the mother had caused her. This form of cyber-bullying had caused her parents to try and enact a law that would stop cyber-bullying. This law would claim any message sent with the intent to cause distress a federal crime. This did not pass for many reasons one being to broad but there have been attempts to stop cyber-bullying but none have really been affective unfortunately.

In an article that I read online, it said that Cyber-bullying can be classified in a number of different ways.  This article gave insight to what i had mentioned in my first paragraph and also supply statistics to show me and others how common cyber-bullying really is. Over half of adolescents and teens have been bullied online, and about the same number have engaged in cyber bullying. That number is very surprising. It can go either way to who is being bullied but also to who is doing the bullying. More than 1 in 3 young people have experienced cyber-threats online.  That number is to high for it to be normal. That would be so many people if we did an example in class. 1 in 3 shows how big of a deal and threat cyber-bulling is online. Many people do not know who is affected or can tell who is and the sad part is not many tell people. They take it. Almost well over half of young people do not tell their parents when cyber bullying occurs. 

With no one stepping up and taking a charge against cyber-bullying is flies under the radar to many. Fewer than 1 in 5 cyber bullying incidents are reported to law enforcement. That is too low of a number for such a common and destroying form of CMC. Cyber-bullying can be stopped but it is not always easy to catch as much as it is for it to be done. Anyone could cyber-bully even though it is more likely for a girl to commit cyber-bullying than a boy. Either way I look at it, it is still too much and too dark that it needs to be stopped in some sense. It should not be so easy for people to commit it and then have it be so hard for people to stop it. The dark sides of CMC are unfortunate and hurt many people because people find joy in harming others. I feel there is no closer way to stopping cyber-bullying as long as people can be anonymous or change their identity with the snap of a finger because we do not know if they say who they are is true. CMC comes with many sneaky and hidden ways behind it that it comes to a point of how can someone stop when technology keeps evolving and growing. 

- Alexa Prezwodek