15/11/16 - NSPCC records 88% rise in children seeking help for online abuse (17)

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/14/nspcc-records-88-rise-in-children-seeking-help-for-online-abuse

The article above is talking about the different cyber bullying that is happening with the children who are using social media sites everyday. Each day, threats and the number of children that are being bullied is increasing everyday; Childline calls by children under the ages of seven are increasing. Since this is the case, children will refuse to leave their homes in the morning and do not want to go to school. An example in the article was given, where a little girl would come back from school and go onto her social media sites and see many messages that are showing that she is being bullied and there is nothing that she can do about it. A spokesman said that because of social media, young people feel under pressure to live their lives in public, to present a personal ‘brand’ from a young age, and to seek reassurance in the form of likes and shares. Trolling and cyberbullying have also become a fact of life for many, and can have a devastating effect on self-esteem.

• In 2011, 58% of five- to 16-year-olds could do this, but in 2016 the proportion rose to 71%.
• ChildWise research also shows that in 2011, 68% of seven- to 16-year-olds had used social media in the week prior to being surveyed, but that by 2016, this number rose to 78%.
• In nearly a third (31%) of counselling sessions for online bullying, children and young people talked about gaming or social networking sites as platforms for abuse or humiliation.

In my opinion, I believe that this is a very cruel thing that is happening and is also increasing massively. However, to avoid getting the abuse on these social media sites, I believe that this can be resolved. For example, if someone is giving another student a hard time on Twitter or etc, they will then have the option to block that specific user and therefore won't get anymore hate towards them. On the other hand, I still believe that, to some extent, people can still bully those people as they have the access of making another account and sending messages via that. Therefore, I believe that this is always a problem that will remain on the social media sites and we will always see an increase.