It’s everywhere. With just one click onto a social media account, students see bullying.

By posting unflattering pictures, hateful texts or mean comments, teens can damage one another’s self-confidence and even cause depression. In too many cases, these incidents have resulted in suicide. According to the National Bullying Prevention Center, students who are bullied are 2.4 times more likely to commit suicide than teens who are not.

Even though cyberbullying is a very serious matter, it is difficult for school officials to prevent. Freshmen Kai Samuels-Jackson believes that the school should do more to help prevent these situations.

“People don’t take cyberbullying seriously, but they need to,” she said. “There should be laws and rules put into place to stop these things from happening. Some people online receive death threats and nothing happens. [That’s] ridiculous.”

According to the Ohio State Bar Association, there are laws that prevent bullying in public schools. Anything from intentional written, spoken, electronic, or physical act from one students to another is punishable by law in Ohio.

On the other hand, when cyberbullying occurs off campus on personal computers, it may be beyond the jurisdiction of school administrators, according to the Cyberbullying Research Center.

However, Principal Dr. Ed Klein explained that even off-campus bullying can be addressed at school if it disrupts the learning environment.

“[I think the reason] people don’t view cyberbullying as seriously as other forms of bullying is because [when] someone is being cyberbullied they can just go offline, but with bullying in person it’s harder to escape,” Samuels-Jackson said.

She also had some advice for people experiencing online bullying.

“Just log off or block the bullying. [They] can’t hurt you if you’re not online,” she suggested.

Although Samuels-Jackson feels that it’s easy to escape the bullies online, another BHS student, who asked that her name not be published, disagrees.

“I’ve been bullied online before and it hurts,” she said. “We live in a world today in which everything revolves around technology.”

“From the moment we wake up we are surrounded by it,” she added. “Most people think you can just log off, but it’s not that easy. Even if I just borrowed my friend’s phone for a quick call, I could see all the mean comments posted on my page.”

“[Furthermore], I need to view social media sites to see the things teachers post for school work. [When] I made a new account, the bullies [and] their cruelty just followed.”

After experiencing bullying, this student became depressed, started to see her grades drop and even considered the idea of taking her own life. Some people say that online bullying is not a serious issue, but this student shows an example of how harmful cyberbullying can be. According to the National Bullying Prevention Center, 14.8% of U.S. high school students are bullied online each year.

Freshman Zoe Flate has also experienced some cyberbullying but treats it in a very different way.

“It happens to everyone,” she said. “No matter what you post, there will always be some hateful comment. That’s why [you] should just ignore them.”

BHS school psychologist Kevin Kemelhar suggests that cyberbullying is more common than other forms because the bullies are able to hide behind a screen.

“[Cyberbullying happens because students don’t] have to do it face to face,” he said. “It takes the place of having to talk out the situation, which then allows [the bully] to continuously harass [another].”

Kemelhar also has some advice for any student that falls victim to cyberbullying.

“Let someone know… such as your parents, or [at least] let someone in charge know, [like] your guidance counselor.”  

According to the BHS code of conduct, the students are subject to punishment if they do that act of bullying on school grounds. That means that if a student is bullying another student online, not while using the school wifi, using a school computer, or at a school-sponsored event, it may be difficult for the school to enforce consequences.

On the other hand, victims should contact the police about serious cases, as these may be subject to civil or criminal charges.

Asst. Principal Ryan Patti said that in cases of online bullying, he speaks with all involved.

“[I sit] down with students and speak with them and their families,” he said.

Although getting parents involved does bring some justice to the issue, it’s more complicated to determine whether a punishment will be inflicted on the student who did the online bullying.

BHS may not have enough rules to help students dealing with online bullying, but they’re some organizations that can help.

According to the article “The Online Avengers” published by The New York Times, an online organization called OpAntibully, founded by a mother whose daughter committed suicide due to online bullying, was able to bring justice, leading to the arrest of certain teens who were cyber bullies.

Freshman Heather Johnson thinks that we need to do something fast to control this ongoing problem.

“[BHS] needs to put up rules preventing cyberbullying immediately. If we don’t control it now, it will only get worse.”