You get home and you’re in a good mood. Everything went perfectly today. You turn on your computer to see there are some posts on your Facebook page. When you look at them, you lose your good mood. Cyberbullying is a common problem spoken in schools today. Some say that it is worse than physical bullying. Well, guess what? Cyberbullying on social media sites like Facebook is so exaggerated and easy to solve you could almost laugh.

We’ve all heard the sad story of some teenager having mean things said to them over the Internet. Have you ever asked the question, “Why?” Why are they on this site? Why are they talking to the bully? People are not forced to have any contact with their bully online. Most online sites where people might be in contact with other people they also give options to get away from these people. They can block or unfriend they’re bully so that they can’t see or hear what they are saying. Even most online video games have this option where people can mute other people of their choice. Also they could just completely delete their account. There is no need to be on these sites. I myself have gone my entire life without these sites. What’s the worst thing that happened? I missed out on an inside joke. Traumatic, right? Even if you don’t want to get off the site what’s stopping you from saying the same thing back at them. Sure that probably won’t help with stopping cyberbullying but they won’t keep saying bad things about you if you say things back. A bully wouldn’t try to beat up a UFC champion, so why would a bully try to pick on the hard target of someone who can fight back? Of course if you sit there and say nothing the bully will never stop and you’ll end up as just another statistic to try to promote anti-bullying products and charities.

Any time one of these anti-cyberbullying ads come up you see terrible statistics like 70% of kids are cyberbullied. In reality when you tear away these lies you see that the Cyberbullying Research Center reports that 24% of all kids have been cyber bullied at some point in their lives. Cyberbullying statistics like this are extremely exaggerated. Companies like I-Safe, a leader in internet safety education, give crazy statistics that haven't been updated in a decade, such as 42% of kids have been bullied while online.  Based on a more recent three-year survey of more than 440,000 U.S. children (between 3rd and 12th grade), 4.5 percent of kids had been cyberbullied, compared to 17.6 percent from that same sample who had experienced physical bullying. (Techdirt) Statistics that anti-cyberbullying ads give you are just meant to scare you into recognizing cyberbullying and to try and stop the bullies. Would a drug addict stop smoking pot just because they saw an ad saying it was bad? So why would a bully?  These anti-cyberbullying ads are ineffective and untrue. Instead of giving people exaggerated stories about bullying just tell them true facts and teach the bullied person how to drop those statistics even lower.  

A lot of people say that the words that appear on your screen have higher emotional stress than physical bullying. One out of 65,000 children from the ages 10 to 14 commit suicide every year due to cyberbullying. Over 16% of cyber bullied kids seriously consider suicide, 13% make an actual plan, and 8% make actual attempts. Really only 17% of bullied kids are cyberbullied when 98% of bullied kids have been verbally or physically bullied. About 4,400 deaths per year, according to the CDC, Center for Disease Control, are linked to physical bullying. For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts (Bullying Statistics). All of these terrible things kind of put cyberbullying to shame. Also if people were smart about it they could easily get away from cyberbullying and there would be no statistics for me to give to you.

Although no matter how much people try they will never get rid of bullies. There always has and always will be mean people everywhere you go. Unless you're in some sort of perfect paradise there will be someone who just ruins everyone's mood. These people are commonly referred to as haters. I myself have dealt with plenty of haters. The easiest way to deal with them is to ignore or accept what they are saying. If someone gets called fat and they completely ignore it and don’t react no one will care. If someone calls them short and they say “Yeah, I’m so short I look up to Smurfs!” everyone will be laughing at your joke and not the bullies. The bullies are still there but they are left in a corner to pout with their friends.  

So turn off your computer, delete your Facebook account, whatever you need to to get and stay away from the bullies. There is no reason to sit around and complain about an easily fixable problem. We should stop focusing on this and take on more serious problems. 

Works Cited
"Bullying and Suicide." - Bullying Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2015.
"The Exaggeration Of The Cyberbullying Problem Is Harming Anti-Bullying Efforts | Techdirt." Techdirt. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2015.
"Is Cyberbullying Really That Bad? - Cyberbullying Research Center." Cyberbullying Research Center Is Cyberbullying Really That Bad Comments. N.p., 22 Dec. 2008. Web. 06 Feb. 2015.
"Please Login OR Register First to Make Recursive Donation." No BullyingExpert Advice On Cyber Bullying School Bullying. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2015.