Bullying has reached a new level on the internet with the help of the new, popular website formspring that just became popular with teenagers in the last few months.  Students have been discussing all the rude and vulgar comments they get on their profile. 

Sophomore Katie Collins says she wanted a formspring simply because she wanted to see what people thought of her.  “I knew that if I made a formspring I would get rude things, but I wasn’t aware of how many I would actually get.”  

 On Formspring, it is easy to write harassing things because it is all anonymous.   They have to decide if they are just going to laugh it off or actually get offended.     

 Chapin Highschool’s psychologist John Adams helps students with many issues they face, including cyber bullying.  Adams’ says “Someone else can only make you feel bad if you give them the chance to do that.  There is nothing that anybody can say about you that you can’t block from your mind.  Don’t give the person the power because that’s what they want.  Don’t give them that satisfaction.”  

 Sophomore Evan Mason says that he doesn’t let the anonymous remarks offend him.  “Most of the things people say are rumors, no one has said anything bad to me yet, but if someone did have a real problem with something I’ve done they should talk to me about it in person instead of anonymously on formspring.”    

So why does someone choose to hide behind the anonymous button?  Dr. Adams says “People do things when they feel like no one is going to find out about it that the person would never do when people knew it was you.  The normal social constraints that we all have everyday, like to be nice to people, disappear when an anonymous button is available.”   

 Formspring wasn’t made for people to be harassed.  It was just supposed to be a site where people ask questions to get to know somebody better.  Soon after the site was made it took a life of its own.  People started to think that since everyone was doing it, it would be okay for them to do it too.  People also find pleasure in reading harassing things.  It’s most popular with the teenage crowd because they don’t really think things through and have not matured yet.       

 Why would someone make a website that is so easy to cyber bully on?  Well Dr. Adams says that it is the same thing as people spreading viruses on a computer.  “At some level people enjoy knowing that they have hurt someone.  People are doing it because of their own misguided sense of power.”                    

Some students have reached the point where they get tired of all the remarks.  Sophomore Katie Mcdaniel says “I deleted my formspring because people kept sending me mass messages about people that I didn’t even know.  I never got any interesting questions that I would actually like to answer so I just deleted it”.  

 Cyber bullying is no different then bullying face to face.  People that cyber bully need to receive the same consequences, because it comes with many side effects.  Cyber bullying is even worse in some cases because it is an easy thing to do, especially when it is done anonymously