The Root of All the Problems

This is it the tip of the iceberg folks: Anonymity. 

I don't know you, you don't know me, but that's what the Internet is for. I can speak my mind freely, and not give a hoot what you people reading have to say, because I'll never see you. Sure my picture is over there on the right, yes that's me I promise I'm not cat-fishing you. But I could be, and you would never know.

In a typical face-to-face interaction there is a sense of checks and balances, for every action you do and everything you say there is a direct repercussion. It is not socially acceptable to use a "Yo mama" joke in public, I mean you can, but that might be the first and last one you use. But once you are on the Internet what is the worse thing that can happen? You get reported? You lose your account?  You can just log out, create a pseudonym email, and register under a new account. Did you learn anything? No. Did you feel any repercussions? No.  Because you don't exist on the Internet. You are just another face behind the millions of screens the Internet hosts.

There once was a time, where 12 year olds only had to worry about scraped knees and cooties. Do 12 year olds still believe in cooties? I can't remember. Any who, in 2013 12-year old Rebecca Sedwick committed suicide after being bullied over online anonymous cell phone apps. Being bombarded with messages stating "Go kill yourself" and "Why are you still alive" it eventually drove her to the edge. The anonymity in social media sites and apps removes any form of identification or accountability for who says what, bringing out the worst of human nature. Do we need more deaths to understand that words can kill? (Taran, 2013)

Verbal abuse, written abuse, ostracism, it wears down a victim, decimating their self-esteem and suffocating vestiges of hope for a positive future (Taran, 2013). The lack of social norms over the Internet combined with the ability to be faceless increases the likelihood of virtual abuse. Had some like Rebecca's actual bullying been focused primarily in school around her teachers and peers, the likelihood of someone stepping in would be increased exponentially. For social norms have taught us to TREAT OTHERS AS YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED! Someone, somewhere, is able to overhear the bullying and step in, but with virtual abuse you rarely know when it is happening.

Social norms are able to impose a sense of uniformity of behavior within a given social group. However, over time norm shifts may occur, when prompted either by changes in objective circumstances or by subjective changes in perceptions and expectations (Young, 2008). The norms present in society have not readily nor easily transferred over to the Internet community. Non-profit organizations such as Project Happiness, End to Cyberbullying, The Cybersmile Foundation and hundreds of others broadcast public service announcements in hopes to end bullying. We need to create a system and continue to educate everyone about the dangers of anonymity on the Internet.

The anonymity of the Internet is similar to this saying:

"If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it does it still make a sound?"

If you make hateful remarks about someone over the Internet, and nobody else sees it, does it still hurt?


Both children and adults need to understand that anonymity isn't something to hide behind, it should not be abused nor used to torment others, but as a way to ensure a sense of privacy over the Internet. Anonymity does not need to have a negative connotation, but until a set of checks and balances is created within the Internet, there will never be a change.
_________________________________________________________________________

Young, P. (2008). Social Norms (S. Durlauf & L. Blume, Eds.). The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 1-288. doi:10.1057/9780230226203.1563