Cyberbullying has taken a scary turn for the worse—the incidents of teens harming themselves or taking their own lives have been increasing. Many of them were taunted for being homosexual and, regardless of whether or not it was true, were not able to take it any longer. In a society that is supposedly becoming more tolerant, it is particularly disturbing to see young people acting this way. Rutgers University was recently shocked by the death of Tyler Clementi, a suicide that has really struck the nation. For weeks, news media has continued to publish articles about Tyler and other teens who have committed suicide due to the harassment they felt from cyberbullying. An NJ.com blog post highlights some of the ways in which Tyler’s suicide has sparked action across the nation. There’s even a full, very detailed Wikipedia page about the incident and the wide range of outraged responses it received.
Unfortunately, Clementi was only one of a string of suicides related to sexual orientation and cyberbullying. The Huffington Post had something about cyberbullying and the rise of suicides back in March: "Cyberbullying Rampant for Lesbian and Gay Teens", which predates the September events. Time Magazine recently had an article about Clementi and three others: “Bullied To Death? In the past four weeks, four teenagers killed themselves after being harassed by schoolmates. Technology is quickly changing how kids bully one another. Here are some ways to stop the problem.” Sadly, Clementi, at 18 years old, was the oldest of the suicides that were profiled in the article (all which took place within 19 days). William Lucas, 15 and Seth Walsh, 13 both hanged themselves—the latter ended up spending more than a week on life support—and Asher Brown, 13, shot himself in the head. Thirteen-year-olds killing themselves because of harassment?! I was shocked to read about these incidents. Apparently, many gay people are coming out as young as age 14, which makes the bullying start earlier. Kids are meaner and it’s easier for them to be mean with the Internet as another way of communicating, instead of just face-to-face contact. Even Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, released a YouTube video addressing the problem of bullying and anti-gay sentiments:
Cyberbullying is something that is impossible to escape. When kids are bullied at school, it is a horrible thing, but they are able to escape from bullies when they are not at school. This is not the case with cyberbullying, which can be incessant. People can make direct statements via chatting tools like AIM, iChat, Facebook chat, or g-chat, but they can also make bullying comments more indirectly: posting on someone’s Facebook wall, a status update, Twitter tweets, e-mails, text messages: the list goes on.
A Psychology Today blog that focuses on the world of the adolescent mind has a post that stems from Clementi’s tragic death: “Tyler Clementi Should Still Be Alive: shame on us.” While this delves deeper into the actual suicide, it is important to remember what it was that spurred him to take his own life.
An invasion of privacy. It is much too easy to invade other people’s lives with the Internet and its vast reserves of information (and tools for locating said information). The Internet, of course, is both beneficial and detrimental. For teens struggling with their sexual identity, or struggling to deal with being homosexual, there are message boards and other places they can go that offer support they might not be able to find elsewhere. But people can use the Internet for ridicule, harassment, and other negative purposes. Cyberbullying has been on the rise as teens’ lives become more entrenched in the online world. For those who are already having problems dealing with being gay on their own, the added stress of others either finding out via the Internet or acting as cyberbullies can be enough to push them towards drastic measures. An article from a high school newspaper talks about how teen suicide is on the rise, particularly among those teens who are homosexual:
The fact that so many teenagers have taken their lives in such a short span of time, and all because of being bullied online about their sexual orientation, is really scary. It makes me wonder what's going to happen next. Post-Clementi, New Jersey is pushing legislation that would increase penalties for the invasion of privacy, and some schools are directly addressing anti-gay bullying, but how much will that really do?
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