Reflection 1

The newspaper article showed me that cyberbullying is not being taken seriously in Trinidad
and Tobago. Some people, mostly teens use the internet to bully others and lower their self-esteem
by posting or spreading negative rumours on their social media platforms. This made me realise that
being on social media can put you in a lot of bad situations and it can harm people.
The second piece I found showed me the truth about cyberbullying. Teens are mostly the
victims or suspects in the activity, they are also the most-unkind on social media sites. Most common
types are hurtful comments and false rumours. This taught me not to bully others because you may
not know how bad it can affect them.
The final piece showed me that anyone can be catfished by someone else just for them to fit
in. this can turn you against your friend who is also being catfished. This made me realise not to trust
anyone who I don’t know. 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.