Intro of social networks

A lot of people today, like to chat with friends or meet new people that share the same interest using today’s social networks. Many people now live on their profiles created online, they post new things every hour, expressing how they feel, what they are doing and putting new pictures. What they don’t realize that once something goes online, it’s going to stay there where people can view it. What people aren’t aware of is that it isn’t safe to be socializing with people online because people don’t know who they are really talking to or end up being. Social network are dangerous because people can lie, mislead or even hurt people emotionally and physically. For example, Megan Meier was a thirteen year old girl who became a victim to a predator and committed suicide on November 2007. She committed suicide because one of her friend’s mom wanted to hurt her for hurting her daughter so she posed as a boy interested in her and mislead her into thinking they were in love and later crushed her dreams by saying he did not love her and humiliated her. The mom stated “she wanted to get Megan to feel like she was liked by a boy and let everyone know this was false in MySpace and have everyone laugh at her” (Pokin). An innocent life was lost and many more have been lost because people have hurt them emotionally or posed false information causing them to feel insignificant and not worthy of living. Cyber bullying is a new topic that has emerged due to social networks. Students go online and write mean statements about each other. Some students may take this aggression seriously and cause them to believe the statements and in return hurt themselves or the bullying. Cyber bullying Research Center states that 40% of United State kids have being teased, harassed and tormented online by their peers (Sparano). Social Networks were created for people to be able to reconnect with past friends and meet new but social networks have become dangerous because people misuse it to hurt each other.

Sources:

Pokin, Steve. “Pokin Around: A real person, a real death.” Stcharlesjournal.stltoday.com.

10 November 2007. Web. 16 October 2010.

Sparano, Nina. “Cyberbullying affects 40 percent of kids.”Chicagotribune.com. 5 October 2010. Web. 16 October 2010.

Picture Source:

Sfantoo. “Virtual Suicide.” Prabaharan.wordpress.com. Web. 17 October. 2010.