Stop Bullying

We hear in the news all the time about a teenager committing suicide. We probably don’t even think twice about why the person did it. Thoughts in our brain come to conclusions like, maybe he or she had a depression disorder or maybe somebody he or she loved died. It probably never crosses our minds that this particular teenager could have been bullied to death. Fifteen year-old Phoebe Prince, a freshman at South Hadley High School was bullied to death. According to New York Times, “The taunting started when she had a brief relationship with a popular senior boy; some students reportedly called her an “Irish slut,” knocked books out of her hands and sent her threatening text messages, day after day.”1 This continued until one day, Phoebe had enough and hanged herself. She hanged herself because a group of teenagers had ridiculed her through Facebook, text messaging and writing demeaning words in her locker. Because Phoebe’s whole world was what people were saying about her on the computer and on their cell phones she lost her true inner self. This undeserved incident relates to the three writers we have studied for they believe that the rise of digital media foreshadows danger to our society. Neil Postman declares that the electronic media results in the disappearance of childhood. Gary Shteyngart connects social media to the end of the America. Sapphire connects illiteracy to the youths reliance in fantasyland, or in other words, television. Certainly, I agree with their propositions because I believe being bullied to death is unnecessary and it can be stopped. Internet bullying can lead to suicide, therefore we must end the rise of social media before it turns into external violence. Postman believes that technology and internet growth results in childhood disappearing. He points out the period of the Middle Ages where there was no separation between child and adult. He believes that, “The absence of literacy, the absence of the idea of education, the absence of