The rise of cyber bullying

After reading this article, I found out many things about cyber bullying; many people have been seriously harmed or even killed by cyber bullying, cyber bullying may be even worse than physical bullying and many countries, organisations and people are doing a lot to prevent cyber bullying. Thirteen year old Ryan Halligan committed suicide after rumours were spread via instant messaging that he was gay and a girl pretended to like him and copied their chat exchanges to her friends. Fifteen year old Gail Jones committed suicide after receiving twenty silent calls on her mobile phone every thirty minutes. The first reason why cyber bullying may be even worse than physical bullying is the sheer number of people who can view anything posted online. It would be bad enough to be cyber bullied by one kid when nobody else knew about it, but a video seen by hundreds or thousands of your peers could be devastating. The second reason is its sheer relentlessness. Cyber bullying could go on 24/7, three hundred and sixty five days a year and there is no escape since today's teens depend on the internet to keep in touch with peers. The third reason is cyber bullies can stay anonymous when online and this means they can write things they would not dare to if their identity were known. Anonymity can also amplify bullying's negative effect on the victim. The psychological ramifications of not knowing who is attacking you can be maddening. The lack of face to face contact might tempt bullies to new levels of cruelty. In cyberspace, where there is no visual contact, you get more extreme behavior. So what can be done? A consortium of European researchers recently developed role playing software called Fearnot!, which gets children to empathise with a victim of bullying. The US Congress passed a law making it a federal crime to "annoy, abuse, threaten or harrass" another person over the internet. In South Korea, the "internet real name system" forces online portals and new websites to record the identities of people who post content and to disclose their contact details if someone wants to sue them for libel or infringement of privacy. However, it can be difficult to persuade people to take the laws seriously and in the US they apply only to adults. Many jurisdictions do not want to investigate or prosecute these cases as they are short staffed and busy pursuing what they call real crime. John Halligan, father of the boy who committed suicide after being harrassed online, continues to lobby for cyber bullying legislation that specifically targets children. He also talks to school groups and runs a website chronicling the events that lead to his son's death. Last but not least, I think that cyber bullying is a very horrible act that can happen to anyone since most of the people use the internet nowadays. I wish that more can be done to prevent cyber bullying, or else the future generation will suffer greatly and the world will be even worse than it already is right now.
Written by:
Zames Lee Wen Jie
3H (38)

Miss Phua,Xiao Lu's invitation has expired.So she's using my account to post her reflection.

There are times when people follow their own instincts, and timmes when people follow others. In this story, her instinct is correct. When she had the dagger-like pain to her gut, the doctor thought thai it was only appendicitis. But she did not believe the doctor and she felt that there would be a more serious problem, like cancer. When she wanted to confirm the fact again, the surgeon avoided her question. Her instincts told her that when people do not answer your question directly, it means that the news is not good. When she finally found out from her sister that she had colon cancer, she was determined to be a normal person living a normal life again.

After she found she had colon cancer, she did not afraid of that, and refuse to cure. I think she is very brave and is not like the other cancer patients, she wanted to resist with the cancer and face this fact. At first, the surgeon told her he had removed a reasonably large tumour from part of my large intestine. He'd also removed about 45 centimeters of the colon itself and stitched the raw ends back together. W e cannot know that how painful is it and it seemed cut part of their body. For them ,if they are lucky to overcome cancer,they may seemed more cherish their life than others as they just experienced about the death before. She fought cancer with three years, we can guess how she depend on her determination to challenge this kind painful for long time.Finally, she overcome the cancer and be a normal person living in a normal life

Picture Discussion

This picture depicts a scene of a school's sports day prize giving ceremony and I know that it is one as the participants are wearing PE attire, there is a running track and a football field and there is a prize being awarded to a winner. As the prize is being awarded, the crowd of spectators behind are cheering and giving a round of applause to the winner. Let us focus on the winner. She is smiling shyly and looking away from the camera while receiving a trophy from the guest of honour. She is extremely happy that she had won a competition and was awarded a prize by the guest of honour himself. In my opinion, I feel that she deserves to be happy with herself as winning a sports competition is a big deal and she may have made people realise her prowd achievement. She may have put a lot effort in training for this event and I can say that her hardwork has paid off. Let us focus on the guest of honour, who has a bald spot on his head. I know that he is one as only guests of honour can award prizes to winners. In my opinion, I feel that he must be very honoured to have come and witness such a joyous event as well as to award the winner with the trophy. He must have sacrificed some time to come for this event and I think that he has much respect for the school. There are two NPCC cadets in full police uniform and are stationed at the far sides of the photo. They look smart in their uniform as they are groomed appropriately and they must have polished up their uniform til tip-top condition. In my opinion, I feel that they are stationed at their posts to maintain order and prevent any mishap from taking place at such a joyous event. Their upright posture tells us that they have a high standard of discipline, are prowd in their work and dedicated in their commitment towards the school. After this event, I think that all the participants will be happy with what they have won and for those who did not win, I hope that they will not be discouraged or jealous, but will work harder for next year and never give up. To conclude, I would like to say that this event is quite meaningfull, has served many purposes and should not be viewed by students as useless or a waste of time. The reason why I think that this event is meaningfull is because firstly, it helps students realise that exercising and keeping yourself fit is very important. Secondly, such a joyous event helps to reduce our stress from all that studying. Thirdly, it brings us together as a school so that we can foster a stronger bond between each other and build better relationships with one another by working together to achieve a common goal. I really do hope that more of such events can be held in my own school.

Written by:

Zames Lee Wen Jie

3H (38)

Reader's digest reflections...the rise of cyberbullying

Its easy to be either prey or predator in the virtual world of the net. The difference only lies in the mindset of the users and how they deal with the consequences of using the Internet.
Predators that abuses the technology may either choose to use hand phones,instant messaging or the Internet which is the easiest to manipulate.
Victims of these bullying suffer mental stress, but to me they are so stupid(that's the only word i can think of). They are usually the weaker lot, unable or don't know how to protect themselves or are just too dumb to do so. They most likely reveal their weak spots too much, show personal information online no matter its embarrassing or not, unknowingly offend potential bullies or trust their so-called 'friends' too much.
With these weaknesses in hold of the bullies, they always regret it too late and some even go into depression or commit suicide. Its so ridiculous when they do so, when it does not even solve the problem and they end their lives just like that.plain silly.
Bullies themselves are also a childish lot, hiding behind the masks they weave on the net, going by these aliases and cause hurt to the weaker.What do they gain by doing this?Maybe some satisfaction for a short while, but who knows the consequences they have to bear afterwards?They don't think before they do, and its as dumb as the victims themselves.

By: Yuxin(5)

The rise of cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying is the use of electronic information and communication technologies including email, websites, text messaging, web logs or blogs, three-way calling, cell phones, photographs, videos, or any other electronic means to repeatedly willfully and intentionally embarrass, intimidate, humiliate, threaten, or harass another.

Cyberbullying is a serious and growing problem among today’s young teens, but measures can be taken to prevent it. It is a mean and cruel conduct and may inflict damage to the victims. Victims of cyberbullying may choose to keep quiet about it and may be reluctant to tell others, causing the situation to worsen. Some children believe by involving an adult, it will make a bad situation even worse resulting in some form of online or offline retaliation. Others may think they just have to deal with it; it’s just the way it is.

Cyberbullying can be devastating to the victims. It can take a serious toll on social confidence, relationships with peers and family, self-esteem and on schoolwork. Children who are bullied frequently are more likely to experience depression and will most probably withdraw from the society. In some more drastic cases, victims of cyberbullying even turn suicidal.

I think cyberbullying can be prevented though. Many may think that the internet is a safe place to make friends and air your grievances, but when things gets ugly, that's when one realises the harms of it. We should protect ourselves by not divulging too much information about ourselves. If someone that you don't know begins to talk to you ignore them, the best idea is to click out of the conversation and block the user from contacting you. If someone unknown to you begins to ask questions that relate to where you go outside of your online world, immediately cease contact and don't answer any questions. Lastly, we should also learn to stand up for ourselves and not get intimidated easily by these bullies.

RD May issue reflection: "I Hunted Down The Woman Who Stole My Life"

Thieves are common everywhere, especially on the Net. Internet cheats are the most dangerous of all, because they can make use of one's personal stuff like a bank account number or address to take our hard-earned money. In Karen Lodrick's case, the postbox thief made use of her identity to purchase expensive items like Gucci or Prada just to satisfy thier own pleasures. I think its simply horrifying. Imagine if someone were to wake up one day just to find that his or her bank account's balance was zero, and the bank said that he or she had made some large withdrawals from their account. The person might be bewildered and unable to give an explanation, while the thief gets away quickly. And the money doesn't go anywhere but to expensive goods. I think what Karen did was right. She chased the thief but although she did not get her money back, she prevented morepeople from getting cheated.
Nowadays more people have the chance of getting cheated with the advance of technology. The Internet provided a place for them to get account numbers and personal information. With the Internet they can simply create an online advertisement like "You are the 100th winner! Click hereto claim your prize!" or as "Spyware" pop-ups, which end up as viruses hacking at your computer's database. I had a close encounter with such a pop-up once. I had just gotten my computer back then and I did not know about the harmful side of the Internet. So there was a "Spyware" pop-uponce and thinking it might be a good thing I clicked on it and installed it. A few days later my computer was instantly hacked by a virus. It was luckythat I brought my computer to the computer repair center and got it repaired and I'm still using it till now. Of course that incident did teach me a valuable lesson.
The government needs to prevent further cheating and thieving incidents from taking place. However although governments have put in a lot of effort to curb these problems like having the law to deal with these problems, such acts are actually human nature. From prehistoric eras there are already instances where Man stole from his own friends or relatives food for his family. So although such acts cannot be totally prevented, parents and the Government should educate the public on how to prevent such cases from happening and to curb these problems.


Written by:
Grace Lim (06) 3H

Reflection on the article:"Alternative Hanoi"

In this article, I realised that the artists in Vietnam are actually struggling, like those in other countries, for acknowledgement and recognition in the society just because people feel that their works are spoiling the country's reputation and are extreme and are normally banned by the local government. It is not fair for those artists. They are capable of producing quality work and are creative but many have to turn into forging works of famous painters like Van Gogh and Dali to earn a living because they are not earning from their original paintings which people find disturbing. It is so as paintings of these Vietnamese artists normally show sides of local government and military officers.
Art is a way to express one's feelings and emotions. Thus, it is not up to the others if it is "good" or not and, not to say, ban it.
This article reminds me of movie censorship in Singapore. In local filmmaker, Royston Tan's first movie, 15, 15 scenes were censored before it was allowed to be shown to the public though this film received numerous awards and gained international recognition.
It is rather ironic that the government wants to promote the arts.
I sometimes wonder how free we, as human beings, are.


Cai Feng