Bullying Beyond The Schoolyard Book Analysis

When I reflect on my adolescent years, I remember racing home from school each day, eager to meet up with my best friend so we could just “hang out.” In a sense, not much has changed for adolescents today; they are still just as eager to socialize with their friend's. However, now they don’t meet up at each other’s houses and hang out in their neighborhood, the way my best friend and I use to. Instead, they hang out together online and their neighborhood resides in their smartphone. This is the message that is conveyed in chapter two of the book, Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard by Sameer Hinduja and Justin W. Patchin. In this chapter, the authors move away from discussing what cyberbullying entails in pursuance of looking at some of the places
When a post seems to vanish from existence, it can spur misuse and in turn, create a breeding ground for cyberbullying. It enables malicious behavior while leaving behind no evidence of the act. Other platforms such as Whisper go beyond the disappearing post, as they are created to revolve around complete secrecy. Apps of this nature do not reveal a person’s online identity, which gives kids a freedom to say whatever they feel, without anyone knowing that it was them who said it. This can open the door to teens saying aggressive and hurtful remarks to people, without any
However, the authors inform us that that is not the case. In fact, they state that most teens use social media for good and I believe that that is the most profound point of this chapter (p. 34). Even with cyberbullying being as prevalent as it is today, it is still not the norm, making the take home message from this chapter being that the benefits of social media outweigh the risks. These benefits include things such as giving teens a way to feel connected to their peers, a way to discover who they are as a person and what they believe in, as well as giving them a platform to express themselves that makes them feel as though they are being heard and taken seriously (2015). One quandary that teens experience is a desire to stand out and feel unique, while still desiring to fit in with their peers and feel like they are a part of the crowd; being a part of the smartphone society allows teens to do just that. While this chapter emphasizes how social media benefits teens, the authors surprisingly did not mention any specific instances of these positive experiences that teens have had. Throughout the chapter, they provide 8 different quotes from kids that have experienced the negative effects of social media; however, they did not supply any quotes for positive experiences. In a chapter that focuses on the benefits of a smartphone society, I