"You look disgusting"

Social media has given us many great benefits to enjoy and has enriched our lives in many ways. One of the more sad results of social media is that it seems like the way we treat each other has gotten more vicious than ever. On second thought, maybe we aren't meaner today than before, maybe it's just that our true selves are more on display today than ever before since we can hide behind a fake name online?

Every now and then you read in the news about teens who have committed suicide after being bullied online for a long time. I hope that we can create programs in schools in the future where kids and teens will learn about the real life impacts of their behavior online and get to hear stories told by people who have been victims of online bullying. I think especially kids and young teens can sometimes have a hard time understanding how much power their words can have on a persons life.

When we say a mean thing to a person in real life we feel bad, but as we write mean words on a screen the person can easily become objectified in our minds, we "forget" that it's a real human being we are writing to and it becomes harder to feel empathy. Videos like the one by "My Pale Skin" are good reminders of how much impact our words can have on a person. We have the power to either lift someone up or pull someone down, with as little as a single sentence.