Social media has become a part of teens’ lives. Yes, there are certainly a lot of advantages. However, sharing your life online might be risky. There are individuals who can abuse¹ new technologies to ruin other people’s lives. Make sure it won’t happen to you!

1.Be educated. “Cyberbullying” means using communication technologies to harm other people, e.g., by spreading² false information about them, using sensitive information such as photographs to compromise them or stealing their identity to spread embarrassing stuff in their name. Cyberbullying also means repeatedly sending hateful or threatening³ messages to make other people upset.

2.Be responsible. Social media give a great opportunity to look into other people’s lives. Some people seem to share everything: what they do, eat, wear and what their homes look like. They share every possible emotion: who they like, love and hate. But before you make any personal information public, think about how it could be used against you in the future. Be careful about sharing compromising pictures or information!

3.Be cautious⁴. Be very careful about your account settings and passwords. Don’t let everybody see everything. Don’t allow any other person to have access to your passwords. Log out of your accounts on public computers. Google your name from time to time to see how much of your personal profile can be found online and remove any pictures and information you are not happy about.

4.Take action. If you have already become a victim of cyberbullying, don’t fight the problem alone. Talk to somebody you trust. What is more, try not to respond to any hateful or mean messages. Cyberbullies take pleasure in seeing how much their victim feel angry or scared. Instead, change your settings and save the evidence: file away every message, email or web address and record the dates. These can help you prove⁵ cyberbullying and catch whoever is doing it to you.

5.Don’t take part. Never become a cyberbully yourself. Even if you have a strong reason to dislike someone, cyberbullying is dangerous, and in some cases, it is classified as a crime. Don’t lower⁶ yourself to that kind of behavior and don’t allow others to do it!

ACTIVITIES:
DO YOU AGREE (DISAGREE) WITH THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS? EXPLAIN.
– Victims of cyberbullying are totally responsible for what is happening to them.
– Social media has more disadvantages than advantages.
– I would always report a cyberbully, even if it were my friend.
– You can’t avoid cyberbullying.

COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES:
– If I were a victim of cyberbullying, I would first …………………………………………………………………………
– If I knew about cyberbullying, I’d never …………………………………………………………………………………….
– If I ……………………………………………………………………………….. , I would definitely ……………………………

Miroslava Dubanová

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