Week 14: Internet Safety DOING part

For this part of the assignment, I talked with my little sister who is 17 years old and a Junior in high school in Portland, Oregon. She is a very social person that has a myspace and a facebook which she uses often. She texts her friends constantly on her phone and also chats on aol instant messenger and facebook chat. I asked her what she knew about cyberbullying- if her friends do it; does she know someone who was cyber bullied; does she do it; and why shouldn't you do it? I then had her go to the net smartz website: http://www.netsmartz.org/resources/reallife.htm and watch the first 3 videos on cyberbullying. She said that she has heard of a similar story to those videos she watched, but she didnt know there was an actual name for it and is still happening. She said, "I didnt think that things like that actually happen. I dont know anyone that has done it and i dont do it myself. It isnt a very nice thing to do to others and I wouldnt want someone doing it to me." I was actually really surprised that she didn't know there was a name for it. She was really oblivious to it and somewhat naive. The experience was actually really positive and quite easy to talk about it with her. I do think it was valuable for her to know this stuff so that she can be more aware of things now.