With the transition to the digital world modern society has taken, it has changed the perspective people have, affecting how they comprehend everyday issues that are faced in society. While older generations have also had to make the adjustment to a more digital world, the younger generations have seemed to struggle more with the issues that have arisen. The most prominent of these issues being bullying through social media. Not only has this transition changed comprehension of this issue, but rather transformed the issue in its entirety. Cyberbullying has become the main and newest source to express hate. This leaving the old fashion bullying, while still present, a thing of the past.

To understand why cyberbullying is so impactful to younger generations, one must understand how the brain of the younger generation works. How a person portrays themselves can ultimately be a big difference between a healthy state of mental health and an unhealthy state of mental health. This in mind how other people view a person can have a greater significance to the mental health of that person, especially those they interact with daily.

Junior Brody Goodnature said, “With the internet being a huge part of almost everyone’s daily life, the way that people see themselves and others online may affect the image they have of themselves, since everything has become comparative nowadays.”

The natural instinct to protect a person’s self image is one of the main reasons cyberbullying is so effective in harming the human mind.

This rapid growth of cyberbullying has seen not to be antagonized as much as normal bullying. Even being facilitated through the introduction of social media apps and being defended with the explanation of it expressing the right of freedom of speech. With more social media apps introducing anonymous features, this has allowed a sense of safety to be felt when expressing hate online. 

A particular social media app that has been gaining popularity for its anonymity feature is Yik Yak. Yik Yak is an anonymous social media app that allows users to share and view posts from people in a five mile radius, thus allowing students to post anything they would want to post to the local community. According to Pew Research Center, nearly half of students ages 13-17 have experienced a personal cyberbullying incident.

Dean of Students Mr. Doug Wanous said, “I think being in the pandemic students got comfortable with the online platforms and anonymity and distance allow people to say things they wouldn’t normally say and find comfort in that anonymity.”

Anonymity leaves the person who posted the hate to perceive a notion that their anonymous hate will have no consequence or repercussion.