Digital Etiquette and Cyberbullying

Digital etiquette is the awareness of being a responsible online citizen. For example, digital etiquette can be shown in many different ways.  For example, if you see someone getting bullied online, you should stand up for the person being bullied and tell the bully that what they’re doing isn’t right and they need to stop. Online bullying (also known as cyberbullying) is a big problem in today’s generation. We’re finding out more and more that cyberbullying is a huge problem and more people need to take a stand and do something about it. If you see someone getting bullied online, whether you like that person or not, you should stand up for them and help them out. Just think if you were in the shoes of the person getting bullied, you would want someone to stand up for you right? If so, then you should do the same for someone else. 

Meanness is saying or saying or doing something with the intent of hurting someone. Meanness can be as simple as saying something rude or mean to somebody or something as bad as bullying someone. Meanness presents its self in many different ways, shapes, and forms. The most common example of meanness is when someone says something mean or hurtful to someone. Even though they don’t always mean for it to be mean, it’s still mean regardless of how you meant it. The most common place for meanness is in school. Just walking through the hallways, I can hear people making rude and hurtful comments to people, and talking about people behind their back. This will be a constant-never ending battle. People have always been mean, and will always be mean. No matter how hard we try to prevent it, and stop it from happening, it’s going to happen. 

Meanness online is also another huge problem in modern day society. Online meanness is more commonly referred to as cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is the use of electronic communication to bully a person, usually by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature. This also includes saying mean or inappropriate on social networks such as twitter, facebook, ect.  When online, there are many different steps that you can take to not be mean.  Don’t say anything that could possibly be hurtful to anyone in any way, shape or form. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

When online you can either be an upstander or a bystander. An upstander is a person who stands up for something or someone. A bystander remains inactive and just ignores the situation. For example, if someone sees bullying happen online, to become an upstander you would stand up to the bully and tell him/her that what she is doing isn’t right and needs to stop. A bystander would just ignore the situation and keep on scrolling to see what else is going on in the feed. There are a few to become an upstander, first don’t laugh and don’t encourage the bully in any way, help the victim in any way that you can and lastly and most importantly, tell an adult so the victim can get support and help.  

                  In conclusion, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.  Let’s all try and make the online community a safe and enjoyable place for everyone to be!

Digital literacy to me is the ability to use technology in order to create information. There are many examples and uses of digital literacy in everyday life. For example, it is used a lot in school systems and in education. The school systems are always updating their curriculum to accommodate for digital literacy. One example of this would be using Smartboards in some of the classrooms and using computers to create and design stuff.

Being digitally literate has many advantage for everyone that is digitally literate.  First of all, it teaches you how to become a responsible digital citizen. Digital citizens are people that use technology in an appropriate and responsible way. It is important to be a good digital citizen for many reasons. First and most importantly, when you are using technology you need to know what precautions to take so that you stay safe.  Some ways to stay safe when you are using technology is to remember to always be appropriate. If you have to question whether it’s appropriate it or not, odds are you shouldn’t be posting it. You should also never use location settings, for example when posting a status update on Facebook or a new tweet on Twitter.

Since I have started earning about digital literacy I have learned a lot. The one thing that had the biggest impact on me was the digital divide. The digital divide is basically the difference between those who have easy access to the internet and a computer and those who don’t. I had made the assumption that since we live in the 21^st century, almost everyone had access to computers. I now realize that not everyone does. There are a lot of kids and students that don’t have easy imitate access to these. I learned that most of them have time to go to the library or another public place to get computer or internet access. I also learned that kids that are affected by the digital divide don’t have the time to go to the library or stay after school if they need a computer. The digital divide affects a lot of people in various ways, and before I started learning about it, I never even knew that it had existed. 

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Digital access is electronic participation in society. This effects me on many ways because everywhere you look there are electronics and people using electronics, such as computers, tablets, smart phones and more. Everyone uses them, from kids and parents to teachers and adults and business people and even some of the elderly such as grandparents use electronics like the computer. Almost everyone uses the computer or has used a computer or a telephone at least once in their lifetime. When talking about education,  the digital divide is the difference between people who have a computer and internet access at home and those that don't have a computer and internet access at home. The digital divide affects me in many ways. Luckily, I have a computer and internet at my house as well as in school, so if I'm unable to get all of my homework or my projects in school, I'm fortunate enough to be able to go home and complete it. 

The digital effect most definitely has an impact on our school and the students that go here. Not all students have a computer at their house so they have to stay after school in order to complete projects that require a computer. The LMC at Bacon Academy closes at 4:30 every day, and the town library closes anywhere between 4 and 8 depending on the day. This may put some students at a real disadvantage depending on what day they go to the library and how much time they need a computer for in order to complete whatever they need to do. if they can't get all of their homework or projects done, they will end up falling behind in school and consequence end up failing or become really close to failing. Also, if someone doesn't have a computer at home and all of their friends do, they may become depressed because they don't have access to everything that their friends do. This will cause more and more problems down the road because they will be less electronically advanced then everyone else around them. 

There are a few solutions that we could do to fix the gap of digital divide in our school system. One thing that we could do is keep the LMC open later for the students that don't have a computer at home, we could also give these students more time during class to work on it, or you could even give them a little later due date since they can’t work on it at home like most of the other students can. 

Digital access is something everyone will eventually need. We have to start providing a more affordable way to give people the internet access they need. If the cost wasn’t so expensive to buy a computer and internet access, I bet more people would have them in their homes.