Argumentative Essay: Is Facebook Making You Mean?

Before technology and social media, children spent their time outdoors, playing with friends and/or siblings, creating bonds and learning how to interact with one another. Children need this face-to-face interaction to learn how to act properly in social settings, otherwise bullying and mistreating becomes more prevalent. Currently, bullying, especially cyberbullying, between children and teens, has become an everyday occurrence. Kids are more likely to mistreat people through social media sites and technology because they can’t see the pain they are causing with their hurtful words. In turn, they don’t feel empathy toward their peers. They learn these social skills, communication, empathy, etc., by watching how others act and/or react to certain situations. Dunbar says, “In the sandpit of life, when somebody kicks sand in your face… You have to deal with it, learn, ... On the internet… There’s no forcing mechanism that makes us have to learn” (239). With too much time spent virtually connecting, children may forego this learning stage and never be able to fully develop

On the contrary, social media is known as the utmost ways to communicate with others through precise emotional signs. The online communication takes various signals away. For example one of the signals is, over the phone, one can hear the change in a person’s tone, or the ominous/menacing pause that sends a message for one to back off. But, the jokes and snide comments aren’t the only problem, there is also a hostile behavior. An incident, was when Devon, a thirteen year old, asserted that a friend would claim that she spread out rumors about him. Devon even claimed that the boy is a quiet adolescent, but throughout the posts he would express himself by capitalize letters and punctuated by endless exclamation marks, the young teenager claimed she felt as in her friend was screaming in her face. Sometimes kids act differently on behind the screen meaning when being on a social website such as Facebook because they feel more secure to behave like that on a computer and not in person. One feels the powerful behind the computer screen and do not realize the actions they make towards the other

SUMMARY- Lauren Tarshis in the article, Is Facebook Making You Mean? published in September 5, 2011 addresses the topic of social media and asserts that it can have an affect on how we act towards one another, online and in the real world. In this article, Tarshis gives an example of how social media affects our behavior. In this example with Anna and Maya, one person comments on a photo based on the comments of others, which hurt the person who posted it initially. When the picture was first posted, the comments were nice, but after a while, when one person said something insulting or mean, so did others. Some did this because the others were doing it and did not think it was that serious because it was joking. But, it did end up hurting the

Is Facebook making you mean? Do you think you are nicer in person? In recent weeks, social media (in this case the website Facebook) has become a highly controversial issue in our community. I very strongly support that Facebook is bringing everyone's nasty side out into the world. To begin with, about fifty-eight percent of children say that someone has been really mean online. Additionally, kids usually aren't mindful to what they comment on a post. Furthermore, most comments on posts are very hurtful and or embarrassing. Clearly this issue deserves to be put into a lot of consideration.

Cyber bullying, however, is also very harmful. Social media sites take up a huge part of people’s lives, and Facebook is arguably the most valuable social media platform for expanding one's reach. “Social media is showing beautiful images and getting people engaged in conversation and giving people a sense of who [your cause] is and why you’re doing what you are (Engage).” With close to 1.2 billion active users (Facebook), Facebook offers unfiltered direct access to the world. Unfortunately it is also an open

It seen that every day you turn on the news you see someone died of cyber bullying. If you didn’t get a Facebook you would have died. You shouldn’t make what other people say people hurt you it’s what you do or say that makes you mean. Social media such as Facebook and Instagram is a good thing for kids to use. Facebook isn’t making kids meaner because kids can find whole communities online where they feel comfortable. Rude comments and insensitive jokes have always been part of the middle school and adult world. Some kids may not like talking face to face they may like it better if they talk on the computer.

You’re scrolling through social media and spot your best friend’s vacation photos, you post a positive comment with a smiley face, another kind post in the sea of the internet. Facebook can make people kind or mean. Facebook isn’t just mean posts, you can be more social, make new friends, and contact family.

One claim in the article was that the efforts of Arturo Beja’s team to curb cyber bullying could be essential and effective. Then Bilton presented his reasons. First, Bilton pointed out that every week, about 8 million, about 80 percent of Facebook users reported or deleted a post or photo about cyber bullying. The tool also allowed the sender of the post or photo knew their unintentional harm. Second, Bilton stated that the efforts of Facebook made sense because it provided more ways and outlets for teenagers to express their feelings. Third, most of the cyber bullies were not intentional and Facebook’s empathy team helped teenagers and other users to be more empathetic. In order to support the reason, Bilton rested on statistics from the research result which revealed that about 90 percent of cyber bullies were just making jokes and only 2 percent of them intended to harm others. In the end, Biltion pointed out the warrant that the idea of creating empathy was not stupid but significant and

However, it has also brought alone with it the dangers of cyber bullying. In today’s interconnected world, bullying poses a serious problem for countless teens. According to the UK 2013 annual bullying survey –taken by 2,000 teens- 69% of young people aged 13-22 had experienced cyber bullying, with 20% also having had extremes cases and were twice as likely to be bullies on Facebook than any other website. And although cyber bullying is fairly recent, and traditional bullying has been around for years, cyber bullying is actually more prevalent. Not only bullies have the ability to cyber bully, but also even those who are bullied can participate. Often times the bullied individual will take out their anger and callous frustrations online via cyber bullying. This is not right. We need to find more positive, non-technological outlets to express our emotions. Over time, our world is getting morally worse, we can be the generation to stop cyberbullying, and make a safer internet environment for our

Children and young adults are growing up in an era where the internet is widely used for everything. We consume all of our knowledge, information, and entertainment there. The internet is considered a whole new world to us separate from reality. The internet is, also, one of the largest forms of communication through social media. Although the internet and social media include many positive aspects, this is also used to target young people worldwide. Young people often fail to understand that they are experiencing a form of bullying until it becomes so brutal, and so degrading that they can no longer cope.

We learn a lot of about cyberbullying and how all the posts you share are viewed by hundreds of people from Orenstein’s essay in Rereading America. Many schools in the United States have attempted to stop cyberbullying but are having trouble because most parents do not know how much harm their children make on social media. Bullying happens everywhere: work places, schools, stores and anywhere that has a immature presence. I believe parents need to be more on top of their children’s social media accounts, and this could prevent most cyberbullying from occurring. In Orenstein’s essay, “Just Between You, Me and My 622 BFFS” we are pulled in to learn how everything you say on social media can be shared with hundreds of people, and this is one of the main reasons bullying occurs

Facebook and Twitter” [2]. Due to all the technology involved, it is more common amongst children and teenagers. Many experts believe that it is more harmful than schoolyard bullying because nearly all of us can be contacted 24/7 via the Internet or mobile phones. Victims can now be reached anytime and anyplace. For many children, home is no longer a refuge from the bullies. Children are now susceptible to threats and abuse in the classroom and coming home to find text messages and emails from the same tormentors when they arrive home. This can leave victims feeling helpless and overwhelmed.

According to a study done by Patchin and Hinduja “students who experienced cyberbullying, as either victim or offender, had significantly lower self-esteem than those with little or no experience with cyberbullying” (Farber,et al, 1226). This is a problem expectably for children because they don’t usually know how to get help and are too afraid to tell adults about the bullying they experience. Today many adults don’t realize how big of an issue online bullying and harassment is in today’s younger generation. The younger generations grab their brand-new iPhones and simply text, email, or use social media to harass their peers, instead of walking up to one another and saying things face to face. Most people of the older generations would say just walk up to them it would be easier and more efficient, however what if the conversation that was trying to be held was embarrassing or hard to say? This is what many on the younger generation are facing, risky things are becoming easier said over technology then in person, “43% of teenagers surveyed reported that they use IM’ing to express something they wouldn 't say in person” says Farber. Therefore, cyber bullying is becoming such an issue for children today, children think they can say anything without a consequence and don’t realize the pain they are causing through the LED screen.

“Because of their limited capacity for self-recognition and susceptibility to peer pressure, child and adolescents are at some risk as they navigate and experiment with social media. Recent research indicates that there are frequent online expressions of offline behaviors, such as bullying,

    Social media has increased online bullying in teens. Since teenagers started using social media “81% of teens say bullying online is easier to get away with it.”. Most of the bullies online do this to get attention from other people who get online and find it amusing to harass others. Trolls on the internet think they can get away with bullying others online because they are behind a computer where they cannot be seen. People who get on social media to make others feel miserable are usually the ones who are hurting and they are not being themselves. They think it makes them feel superior by hurting others feelings. They think they can be unkind because they are not face to face with the other person. Since teens started utilizing social media at a young age, teenagers have experienced online bullying.