Preventing

Suicide And
Suicide Attempts
In Cyber Bullying
Cases

--By Brandy Caldera


Have you been a victim of
cyber bullies? DoSomething.org states
that nearly 43% of kids have been
bullied online. And 1 out of 4 have had
it happen more than once. A survey
conducted on UTEP students in March
2014 found that 6 out of 27 students
were in fact victims of cyber bullies. In
recent years, bullying-related suicides
in the U.S. and across the globe have
drawn attention to the connection
between bullying and suicide. Mass
media is one of the largest reasons a
great amount of attention is being
brought upon the subject of cyber
bullying and youth suicides. Various
studies show that bullying behavior in
adolescents is associated with
depression, suicidal ideation, and
suicide attempts. Something needs to
be put in effect in order to prevent
these cases of adolescents taking their
life because of something so awful as
cyber bullies.
Cyber bullying is the use of
electronical communication to bully a
person, typically by sending messages
of intimidating or threatening nature.

According to DoSomething.org
bullying victims are 2 to 9 times more
likely to consider committing suicide.
DoSomething,org also states that
there are about 100 to 200 times more
suicide attempts than completed
suicides, according to 2012 Centers to
Disease Control and Prevention report
on 15- to 24-year olds. It isnt exactly
clear why cyber bullying has a
stronger impact than common
bullying on a childs risk on having
suicidal thoughts. This may be
because victims of cyber bullying feel
denigrated before a wider audience,
or because the event is stored in the
Internet, they may relive denigrating
experiences more often, van Geel
said. According to livescience.com, In
the pre-Internet era, bullying was
limited to school hours, but these
days, modern technology lets bullying
continue even when kids go home
from school, said Dr. Victor Fornari,
director of child and adolescent
psychiatry at North Shore. Because
schools don't have control over
children's Internet activities at home,
educators often struggle with the
issue of bullying accountability,
Fornari said. For instance, there is no
clear legislation delineating schools'
responsibilities to protect victims
when cyber bullying occurs off school
grounds or after school hours,
Fornari noted. A solution is needed to
prevent all of these cases of suicide
and suicidal attempts. Adolescents
shouldnt be thinking or taking their
life because of this. These kids need
help and they need to learn how to
build up their self-esteem. Kids
nowadays need to learn how to be
strong and not give up in life just
because someone is taunting them
online and posting false things online.

The introduction of an
application on cell phones where an
individual can talk to someone or they
can read positive things. Positive
things to read such as quotes and
messages that might be uplifting if
they are having suicidal thoughts. It
will be available to download on all
types and models of smart phones.
Victims of cyber bullying wont be
having a problem getting it because
obviously if theyre getting bullied
online there has to be a way their
getting connected online, so what
better way to incorporate a solution
application than to put it across a
place where it can be reached easily
by the victims like a smart phone
application. This application will have
a GPS tracking system as soon as it is
downloaded to the individuals cell
phone. Therefore the individual is
only being tracked when the
application is being open because that
would obviously mean that the
individual is opening the application
because he/she is having suicidal
thoughts. Behind this application
there would be a calling center with
specialists on preventing suicides, to
calm and to give advice to help
prevent tragedies of occurring. The
specialist could either text or speak
with the person whos life might be in
danger. These specialists will have the
background on psychology, abuse
prevention and counseling. People
with these types of backgrounds will
be needed because they should be
able to handle any situation that is
being thrown at them. Once the cyber
bully victim clicks this application it
locates where they are and it alerts
the helping center so that they have
someone on watch just incase
something bad might occur. This
application should be advertised
everywhere so that adolescents that
are going through problems with
bullies can be aware of it and
download it so it can be helpful to
them. Nowadays all teenagers do is be
in the internet, watch television and
join social networks, so it would be no
problem getting them to be aware and
informed on this helpful smartphone
application.














































































Citations:

Blaszczak, B. (2014, March 10). Bullying Linked to Suicidal
Behavior in Adolescents. LiveScience. Retrieved May 13, 2014, from
http://www.livescience.com/43994-bullying-suicidal-behavior-
adolescents.html



11 Facts About Cyber Bullying. (n.d.). DoSomething.org. Retrieved
May 13, 2014, from https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-
cyber-bullying