Gordon's Reflection Online (About Bullying)

Topic: 22pc of teens experience online bullying By John Kennedy
Link: http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/12250-22pc-of-teens-experience-on (accessed on 16/4/2011)

Reflection

I would like to share with you online bully which I think it is greatly related to our course. I would like to mention each point the following area.

The first one is that how accurate it is to say people nowadays have a higher of level of 'cyborg-like'? In my opinion, I think the answer is yes. This is becasuse there are more and more people using computers. I do not mean to say that only young children will have a wider exposure to the cyber world. But what I emphasize is that when they grow up, as future leaders, the whole society will be more like a cyber. Therefore, I think more people will 'cybory-like'.

Another point I would to share is that there are more and more people doing what they want to do online and those things seem immoral in dialy lives. We learn from the course that 'racism, sexism and rape', are going to be more and more in cyberworld. Bullying, in this news, serves the same function. The reason for it is that people actually have many to be in their mind, but they are not allowed to do it in real world. However, they can do it in virtual world, so we can see there is not only increase in accessing online, but there is also a higher tendency of people doing immoral things.

The news also shows education is important. I think it is true and , as in our class discussion, it can be a very meaningful term. But , my question is how effective can it be? There are indeed many programes and courses teaching what online ethics and online behaviours. I also had some of these courses in my school. In those course, the learners tend to be a very obedient and good students. This may show the program is effective.

However, what I like to say that the answer is no. When we go online, we see numerous temptations like what we learn from the course, and we are taught of rejecting them. There are usually two options 'I accept' and ' I do not' . This is actually testing the online ethics. Well, as you press ' I accept', this web can simply allow you to asset to the area. From this, I would to like to two weaknesses. The first one the education fails to educate the users. If it is successful , users will not accpet and enter. The second thing is about the technological failure, because when users click 'accept', the web opens the door with any checking. This is actually a big loophole.

For me, to further improve the situation, The web should further check the status of the users and block the use of the web when they are not qualified. This can also be viewed as a punishment of breaking the rule.

Pareting, stated in the news, is important and I agree with it. This is because users will usually use computers at home to do those things. If the parents use their authority and set as a good example to educate the teenagers. The level of doing bad things are likely to decline. You may argue they may go to some New Bars to do it, but if they are well educated, the chance is not high.

Although it is a piece of oversea news, I think it is true to say Hong Kong shares similar situation because Hong Kong has a high access to computers too. If Hong Kong can practise those policies effective, I think Hong Kong will be a good place for computer usage. Therefore, in conlcusion, the news inspires me that, online bullying, which I think is a kind of unethical matter, should be solved mostly in parenting and education, of course, the computer website itself and everyone should have his/her own role!