Her name was Megan Taylor Meier. She had just started eighth grade at a new school when she decided to break off her friendship with a girl down the street. Yet, amid all of those changes, Megan was the happiest she had ever been because she had met a cute sixteen year old boy on Myspace named Josh who was new to the area. Josh was the perfect Myspace boyfriend. The two formed a quick connection during their month-long relationship. Until one night, out of the blue, Josh told Megan that he didn’t want to talk to her anymore because “Everybody knows how you are. You’re a bad person and everybody hates you.” He then said, “Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you. ” She responded with a message saying, “You’re the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over.” Megan Meier took her own life that night. Six weeks later, Megan’s parents found out that Josh never existed. The mother of the girl that Megan used to be friends with, Lori Drew, had created him to get back at Megan for not being her daughter’s friend anymore. Her tragic suicide was the result of cyber bullying, an act that, in today’s technological era, has become increasingly more common and can have devastating effects.
Cyber bullying involves the use of information and communication technologies that augment deliberate, repeated, hostile behaviors (by an individual or a group) that are intended to harm someone. Perpetrators of cyber bullying have a vast range of interactive tools at their disposal such as instant messaging, cell phones, social networks, and cyber bashing web sites that can be used to harm a victim.These behaviors include, but are not limited to harassment, denigration, and cyberstalking. Harassment is a term used to describe what is perhaps the most common form of cyber bullying, involving cruel or offensive messages sent to somebody. Denigration implies posting untrue information about a person to hurt or sabotage the target’s reputation or...