Imagine you are scrolling down your time line on Instagram or Twitter and you see someone has said something about you or posted a bad picture/video of you. Imagine the feeling it gives you. Hurts doesn’t it? Unfortunately, this happens to many people and has led to tragic events including suicide.

Social networking sites facilitate cyberbullying.  According to an entry on the “Are Social Networking Sites Good for Our Society?” section of ProCon.org, 49.5% of students reported being the victims of bullying online and 33.7% reported committing bullying behavior online. According to the CDC, there are 4,400 deaths per year because of cyberbullying. No matter what anyone says about cyberbullying, the fact is, some people can’t shrug it off and move on and they end up ending their life. This is tragic, and there is absolutely no reason for it to happen.

For example, Amanda Todd who posted a story to YouTube last month about being cyber-bullied, was found dead. Amanda’s video tells a story of the bullying she was subjected to, both online and off. Amanda developed anxiety, depression, and anxiety disorders she says in the video, followed by a path into drugs and alcohol. This is what cyberbullying causes, drugs, alcohol and, later, death.

Cyberbullying a person – saying cruel or negative things about a person online – is worse than saying it face-to-face.  People don’t have the courage to say something to someone’s face, so they use social media as a form of courage. The thing with social media that makes it so much worse than face-to-face is that a much larger group of people sees the comment and, all too often, join in the comments.  Maybe they don’t even know they are being bullies – but they are.   In the end, the victim has way more than one person bullying him/her.

What’s the point of making someone so miserable to the point where they want to hurt or even kill themselves?  When they do hurt themselves, act out, or worse, you will feel badly. However, feeling badly after the fact is not okay.  That’s not how it works. In the end, if you pile on or even make a simple comment such as “RT” or “^” you are part of the problem.