Cyber Bullying

As amazing as the internet is, it's not free from its drawbacks. Cyber bullying is absolutely one of those. Bullying is nothing new, kids have been partaking in the practice throughout all of history, but cyber bullying is a fairly new problem. With the advent of the internet and the ability to connect with people all over the world, unfortunately also came the ability to hurt others through that very same institution. The scariest thing about cyber bullying is that it's all but impossible to escape. It used to be, that once a child came home from school, the bullying stopped. They couldn't be reached by their harassers and were, at least for a time, safe. The internet changed all of that forever. Now, shameless acts of bullying can be committed through a keyboard and a screen, and given how crucial the internet is for nearly every aspect of our lives, it's all but impossible to avoid. Did I experience bullying growing up? Yes, a little bit, but I never experienced cyber bullying. I think that is largely due to the fact that in the late 90's and early to mid 00's when I was growing up, the internet wasn't nearly as incorporated into all of our daily lives as it is today. It was more seen as a luxury, as something frivolous to do in our free times, and more often as a nuisance rather than something integral to work and school. Today that's very different. Kids need the internet for pretty much everything, and now bullies have a whole new means of making the lives of other children miserable. They can pick fun, bully, and outright harass others from the comfort of their own homes and that is and I predict will continue to be a huge problem for society for a long time to come. The tricky thing about cyber bullying is that really no one has thought of a good way to stamp it out aside from completely removing social media and the internet from the equation, which is just plain unrealistic. One possible thing that I thought of, while not a perfect solution, I think could help is making a legal age requirement for the use of social media. If that were in place, I think it would help a little bit since a lot of kids will have grown out of their bullying phase before their even able to access the internet. Obviously that wouldn't completely solve the problem, but it's just an idea. I'm not sure what the legal age would even be, as well as taking into account the fact that some people never outgrow bullying, makes it a pretty flimsy proposition, but it's still something. I'm aware that the first lady has made combatting cyber bullying her big goal, and noble as that may be, it's staggeringly ironic that her husband is one of the biggest cyber bullies that the world has ever seen. He's world famous for mercilessly attacking anyone who throws even a slight criticism his way, but I'm getting off topic. I respect that Melania Trump is taking this issue seriously because it really is a big problem facing society, and I sincerely hope that she does find someway to combat this horrible issue.