We all have (Cyber) Feelings...

Last week in class, Akiko mentioned a website called Formspring. Formspring is a forum that enables people to ask questions and answer questions anonymously. She mentioned that it has been used in a negative way by some to ask really embarrassing and inappropriate questions. So I decided to investigate. I haven't worked up the courage to try chat roulette yet, and after hearing Jeff's story in class last week, I don't think I ever will. But, I decided to check out Formspring to see what this website was all about. The first name I typed in was "Kelly" not for any particular reason other than I was wearing a kelly green shirt at the time. This is what came up:

Innocent enough. Cats or Dogs? Good question, one that surely we all have an opinion on (Dogs rule!). The questions that followed were all interesting (and appropriate) as well. What do you like to do on the weekend? What's your favorite color? Apparently, with Formspring you can choose which questions you would like to answer and it's not public until you answer it, so Kelly has chosen to answer the questions we see on her page. I wonder how many inappropriate questions she received and did not choose to answer? I wonder that because as I searched other people's questions and answers, it immediately became clear to me what Akiko meant when she said that she couldn't say aloud the things she had read on Formspring. I can't repeat or write them aloud either. Many of the profile pictures where I saw these disturbing Q & A's taking place were head shots of teenagers. I am an adult in my 30's (granted I may be a bit on the naive side) but I was horrified at the things I read. I couldn't believe people would ask these things or even think about these things! Even the milder exchanges showed that this forum has the potential to start gossip, hurt feelings, and reveal way too much information.

Here are a few that I saw:

If you could date any girl at our school who would it be?

Why did you break up with....?

What do you think of the math teacher?

Are you a virgin?

After leaving Formspring, I felt a little queasy and disappointed with our world. Why would people choose to spend their time this way? Then I read an article about Alexis Pilkington a high school athlete from Long Island who committed suicide. She was the target of cyberbullying and although her parents don't believe that's what ultimately caused her to take her own life, I'm sure being a victim of cyberbullying didn't do anything to deter her or ease the depression she clearly was suffering from. The sickest part of all is that friends made tribute pages to honor Alexis on both Facebook and Formspring. Both of these pages were then subsequently flooded with negative and lewd comments about Alex. A disgusting example of the dark side of social networking sites like Facebook and Formspring.

Cyberbullying is the most public and humiliating form of bullying, but on the other hand, it may be the most unnoticed by the adults in these kid's lives. I am willing to bet that most of the parents at our school have no idea what Formspring is, let alone if their kids are using it and how they are using it. If the kids who are using this forum are using it to ask and answer positive and uplifting questions in public, who knows what kind of questions they are being exposed to, filtering, and choosing not to answer in private? Parents and teachers need to be informed about the existence of these sites and they have to then have conversations with kids about them and the way that they are being used. These conversations are even more important with a student population which is wired in and using social networking on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis.