Dangers of Internet

The Internet has become the most widely used means of communication with people in other parts of the world. The internet provides a variety of meeting places, form message boards to so-called social networking sites. Today's society is spending lot of time on the internet, on these social networks unaware of what the dangers are. Internet maybe incredibly useful but the dangers far outweigh the benefits. There are various kinds of dangers that can make an individual psychologically and sociologically weak such as, cyber bullying, sexual predators, gambling and finally data theft.

Youth are very naive, young and eager to learn, the internet is a perfect place to get the most information, but they are unaware of the dangers they might experience. On the internet the individual is exposed to cyber bullying, when peers bully through the use of instant messages or e-mails. Today's society thinks that cyber bullying is same as a schoolyard bullying, which can be resolved by telling an adult or a supervisor who can solve this. That' incorrect cyber bullying differs from schoolyard bullying, because cyber bullies don't witness their victims reactions, which makes it easier for them to continue their harassments (WebMD, 2007). The victims of cyber bullying don't usually revel that they are being bullied because they are afraid that their parents might overreact or yank their internet privileges.

Victim can be greatly affected if the cyber bullying continues for a long period. Victim's grades will fall due to the fact that they are afraid to go to school because they feel extremely insecure to leave their house. The victim will also become psychologically down, the individual will often get angry, sad and will go into a severe depression. They will develop various kinds of feelings/fears such as, fear of being lonely, feeling of helplessness, they will become paranoid, so it's hard for them to meet new people and make friends, and most importantly they will feel unwanted in the society which may lead them to commit suicide (InfoSec, 2009).

There have been a lot of victims of cyber bullying in the past few years, one of the well-known victim was Megan Taylor Meier. She was American teenager from Missouri who committed suicide at the age of 13. Her suicide was credited to cyber-bullying through the social networking website MySpace. The account through which the bullying took place supposedly belonged to a 16 year old boy. Megan Meier developed a friendly relationship with this boy, later on it developed to an advanced stage, where the exchanged compliments and love messages. One day Megan received numerous hateful messages such as "I don't want to be your friend anymore" and "The world would be a better place without you" etc. She then had an argument with her mother and went upstairs to her room, she was found twenty minutes later,