ART 3170 Civic Engagement: Social Issues "Action" Project: Bullying (Joselyne Gallegos)

Social Media and Bullying

My Research:
Bullying has been a situation that unfortunately has not come to an end. What is bullying? Bullying can be a verbal or physical abuse towards any individual. One can say that you can not end bullying indefinitely, but there is always a way where you can make a situation better. Now in days social media has been a resource of bullying, like Facebook and Instagram. Social media has become a big part of bullying and my community feels that it is a big problem.We have situations where women can be given a certain way of how to look, you have memes of racial messages, etc. According to DoSomething.org, over 3.2 million of people are victims of bullying every year. Statistically speaking this is a big amount of people being bullied. In this situation, this is more of a verbal abuse towards someone. A verbal abuse can be a discrimination of how someone looks, talks, or even about where they are from.

According to Cyber Safety, "A significant amount of social media bullying takes place on Facebook. This is due to many factors including its widespread popularity and its capacity share photos and other media" (par. 4). Facebook is a very popular social media now in days. It is very true when photos can be shared on this media and they can stay on the internet forever. People have to be careful of what they post. Unfortunately, there isn't much one can do once there is something shared on social media. This can affect someone's life in a big way and that is something no one wants to deal with. Bullying can be to anyone, little kids, teens, and adults. There is no age limit.

My Personal Story:
I believe that bullying is a big issue because one does not know how much a person's life can be affected. This social media situation is a very big thing now in days because everyone has access to technology, even little kids have high tech phone now in days. I have been a victim of bullying and I have also been the bully.
I was a victim of bullying when I was in elementary. I was in 4th grade when I was hanging out with my friends and we were playing handball during recess time. As we were playing this guy comes up to me because he was the next opponent since when you play hand ball you play until you loose. When we were playing I noticed he kept calling me names like "ugly", "you look like a guy", and "you are dark". Ever since that day he would call me dark girl. It was very hard for me because I felt ashamed of my skin color. He would tease me whenever he saw me and laugh about it with his friends and I would feel bad until one day I told my mother and I had to talk to my teacher about it. Ever since then I was very ashamed of my skin color. After I graduated from elementary, I didn't care since I was more concerned of how I looked physically than my own skin color. I see things very differently now. I am not concerned of anyone's opinions, but my message is that verbal abuse can be hurtful.
I was also a bully. My little sister was in 5th grade and I was in high school when she began to get bullied by some other girl. This girl would make fun of my sister's arms calling her hairy at school. My sister one time came crying home and she told me the story and I had got very mad about that. I knew who the girl was because they used to be friends and they got into a little fight and they didn't talk then. So back then there was the social media, Myspace, which was popular how Facebook is now. I had sent her a message on Facebook telling her that if she didn't leave my sister alone she was going to deal with me. She did get scared because she didn't bother my sister again, but told her mother about what I did. I obviously did not see things the way I see them now, but I did not feel any regrets then. Everything was different then. My mom had talked to me telling me that this is not the way that things are supposed to be handled and to remember of what happened to me when I was being bullied. Bullying is not a good situation.
This is an important topic to me because bullying is an everyday situation and no one deserves to be bullied.

My Community and I: