---Making high school students around the world aware of the impact of cyberbullying & preventing it from happening.
Let me tell you a stoy...
Linghua Zheng, a girl who was accepted by Graduate School of East China Normal University majoring in music education went to visit her grandfather in the hospital to share this great news. She dyed her hair pink and posted a picture of her and her grandfather on social media to capture the happy moment. However, from the traditional aesthetic perspective, people in China tend to think that dyeing hair into bright exaggerated hair color means unprofessional and non-mainstream. Instead of celebrating this young profession’s new career, people started commenting under her post and judging her inappropriate hair color for a future teacher with radical language and said the pink hair made her look like a prostitute. After experiencing a 6-month continuing cyberbullying due to her pink hair, that girl who would’ve been a future educator committed suicide. We are now more aware of the problem of cyberbullying and know that the Internet is not a “lawless” place.
Freedom of Speech
With the Internet developing, people can get to use the digital devices at younger and younger ages, and freedom of speech is something that we are pursuing and encouraging. The convenience of communication and commenting on social media have been enhanced greatly.
Bullying has always been a part of any group development, but with technologies, it takes less courage to bully online since the bullies just need to move their finger tips and it could be totally anonymous but powerful.
Vulnerable GenZ
It is especially impactful to GenZ that is still developing mentally, physically and socially. It’s special that this generation is growing up with the Internet and with handy novel things around us and under this background forming social circles and the way of expressing ourselves to the world have big differences with the other generations. Thus, with the fast speed of spreading information, people from our generation (Gen Z) are getting more vulnerable to others' judgment, or even just comment in comparison to adults.
Online Bullying
side note:
all of the images from this section is created by AI
--GenZ with technology
UN Sustainable
Development Goal:
Cyberbullying is listed as one of the global issues by UN. It's under SDG #3----good health and well-being----since it's closely related with adolescents' mental health, and SDG #16 -- peace, justice, and strong institutions.
good health and well-being
peace, justice, and strong institutions
About Me
My name is Chuyue (Daisy) Zhang
I am currently a high school senior attending Lake Forest Academy, and I will join Boston University in the fall. I'm from Inner Mongolia, China, and moved to Beijing for school since elementary school.
