Social media and bullying today, has turned into to a much more complex issue that is constantly disregarded as concerning matter. With technology evolving every day, social media can be accessed anywhere on any platform with bullying taking place on any one of them. Chapter two of Cyber Bullying and E-safety (Katz, 2012) assesses the several forms of bullying: verbal, physical, coercion, emotional, indirect and prejudice driven. Over the last forty years extensive research has been undertaken to document the long-term effects and concerns of long-term bullying. Results show that teens when faced with cyber bullying all had experienced increased anxiety, poorer physical health, higher chance of depression and in extreme cases suicide. When linked together, depression and suicide, the chances of a teen taking their life increased significantly. Conversely, social media is not all negatives; it is a known fact that social media plays a critical role in a young person life. According to ikeepsafe.org most teenagers spend up to 44.5 hours per week on social media. But how do these social media sites have a positive impact on …show more content…
To catch a predator on Dateline NBC is a great example of predators being caught in the centre on the investigation. Most of the predators have a social disorder or have had a history of a horrible upbringing. This is why it is important to educate teens about the dangers of social media and Internet, and how dangerous it is unsupervised. Educating teens about the importance of safety when online being smart is crucial when allowing children accessing the Internet. Social media can be used as a main hub for Predators and cyber bullies. Without even known children can easily share much more than they should, this is where teens are vulnerable and prone to an attack. Preventing such things can be simple with a little teaching. Never reveal passwords to anyone, keep information private, be wary with friend requests, make sure you can see the persons profile picture. Filtering software or parental controls are a great way to filter out and prevent teens from encountering with a sexual predator. The book “Social Networking Profiles” (Karl, 2008) examined students’ ‘use of and attitudes toward social networking