Reported by:
Ng Yi Phin JR3Z(2)
14th January 2023 was the first-ever Independent Learning Day. On this special day, Junior Middle 3 and Senior Middle 2 students attended a talk by Mr. Kenn Yeap on cyberbullying at the school hall. Kenn is a media communications lecturer at TARUMT(TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN UNIVERSITY OF MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY), freelance writer, current affairs commentator and blogger. In the introduction, Kenn said that his dream of coming to Kuen Cheng has finally been fulfilled, and he started the talk without further ado.
Our lives involve communicating everywhere, everytime. This includes talking to others, writing, and sending text messages. However, when a misunderstanding happens, it can often lead to huge consequences. With emojis highly popular, who can guarantee you for sure that a smiley face emoji means happiness?
First, Kenn showed participants some data. These numbers might not seem such a big deal to much people, but they actually cause a huge impact:
1. An average person spends a total of 2617 times swiping their phones.
2. 56.5% of Internet uses are aged below 29.
3. Most social media users are aged between 13 to 34.
A number of unhealthy trends have also surfaced, such as the blackout, skull-breaker, corona, salt, and GoCrazy challenge. They have caused the deaths of a number of TikTok users, all doing these challenges just for views. These are just mere examples of problems caused by social media. Cyberbullying has resulted in various suicides. Sometimes because the victims can‘t find a sympathetic ear, or because they feel that leaving this world will make them freer. Tragic incidents include Gabriella Green, Amanda Todd and Shashikala Madarajah. There are a total of 10 types of cyberbullying via social media in Malaysia.
1. Exclusion
2. Harassment
3.Doxing
4. Trickery
5. Cyberstalking
6. Fraping
7. Masquerading
8. Dissing
9. Trolling
10 Framing
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Kenn also showed participants a touching music video for a song on cyberbullying, called “凶手不只一个”. The lyrics to this song explained the complexity behind a cyberbully incident, sometimes including the perpetrated victim (加害的被害者), or the victimised perpetrator (被害的加害者). These perfectly explain the psychological activities happening in each person involved in an incident, and how we ourselves can become a perpetrator unknowingly.
At the end of the talk, Kenn showed two boards full of the most negative comments written by participants who had seen them on social media before. These include: “You are so ugly” and “Go die”. It is a very sad truth, that these comments are really sent to victims, weakening them.
