Short Story on Cyber bullying

My technological obsession began in fifth grade when I received my first phone. It was a purple flip
phone, the fancy kind with a sliding keyboard. As an eleven-year-old, that phone was my life and key
to maturity, responsibility and superiority compared to every unfortunate, phoneless soul. A couple
years later, I upgraded from my beloved flip phone to an iPhone 4, a colossal step from no internet
access to the entire web at my naive fingertips. I discovered social media, downloaded the most
stereotypical games (I’m talking Fruit Ninja), and spent hours messaging my school friends and new
ones I’d meet through various apps. Of course, I knew the dangers the internet held, how you could
be bullied, catfished or have your personal information leaked. Teachers, parents, and internet-weary
friend had drilled the dangers of the internet into my head. None of that bothered me; I had a device
that gave me so much independence without having to leave my room! Having a phone and gaining
that sense of being an adult was the best feeling in the world, but that soon changed. As I spent more
and more time online, I eventually met a guy named “Josh”. We liked the same books and had mutual
online friends, so of course we started talking. We went from enthusiastically discussing
our favourite characters to me begging him to talk. From messaging him maybe once or twice a day,
to making up stories about how I was depressed just to make him talk to me. He came between my
friends and me; we were obsessing over getting his attention, even fighting over it with all-caps yelling
matches. I remember not talking to some of my closest friends for days because they had taken his
attention away from me. It took months for us to realize that Josh was not worth losing our
friendships over, that he had manipulated us into hating each other, practically bullying each other in
efforts to get closer to him. We blocked him and started rebuilding the connections we had damaged
so badly. That was when Josh messaged us all and revealed that he was actually a girl our age named
“Sarah”, who had pretended to be Josh in order to get into our inner circle. We had all been catfished
and it was a shock for everybody. After everything that happened, I finally saw how the internet and
social media had changed me for the worse. It had taken up the majority of my time and turned me
from a caring friend to a horrible one. I decided to reduce the time I spent online and be more
cautious about who I talked to. Cyberbullying is a scary part of internet culture that affects one fifth of
all Canadian teens. It happened to my friends and me, people I never thought I would hurt or that
would hurt me. I think we all need to learn to manage the freedom of the internet and the
consequences of having an online presence.

Written by Anne Caissie

By Alexandra Gillard
Published on Feb 21, 2019