Cyberbullying Has Tragic Consequences

Social Media Harms

A Tribute to Carson Bride

In spring 2020, like many students throughout the United States, he started attending school online. He missed his friends from school, so he downloaded the Snapchat app on his smartphone and started inviting his friends from school to be on his My Story (private) friends list. One of the people in his private friends list downloaded the Snapchat secondary apps Yolo and LMN. These apps allowed users to send anonymous messages.

In his past, Carson fainted while at school.

Carson tried repeatedly to find out who was sending these messages. His smartphone included messages asking the user to identify themselves so they could talk out their differences. The bully refused.

Carson did not tell his parents nor school officials about the anonymous messages. He hid the fact that he felt terrified and ashamed. No one reported this harassment to anyone who could intervene — parents, school officials, or other trusted adults.

Kristin tried to contact Snapchat about her son’s harassment. She never received any replies to her requests for assistance.

Siani noted that the way that humans communicate with each other has changed radically with the rising use of internet services and social media. She observed that social media is having an impact on people, more than just noting statistics. Both she and Rogers commented on the U.S. Senate hearings on Facebook and Instagram in the fall of 2021. Senators displayed charts regarding the rising rate of teen suicides, treating internet safety like just another statistic, not an issue that affects people’s lives.

Rogers and Siani also observed that these tragic outcomes are happening to good kids, with involved parents. Children and teens are growing up in a world that is unfamiliar to their parents. Traditional methods of ensuring children’s safety such as: parents meeting their children’s friends, setting curfews, ensuring regular communication during family mealtimes and other methods will not work in today’s online environment. There is a huge disconnect between in-real-life and online activities: parents cannot see what is going on in social media; developmentally, teens think they are invincible. Siani remarked:

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