Social Media and Bullying

I was searching around on CNN.com for something to right about for our last blog. I came across a title that read ‘Social Media Brings Bullying to Light’. I thought well that is fitting being that is what we have been talking about. I clicked on the link and was sick to my stomach about what I saw. I am some what of a wuss when it comes to seeing anything violent or sad AT ALL. It doesn’t matter to what degree or to whom I just can barely stand to keep my eyes on the computer screen long enough to watch what happens. Anyways, back to the video. It is a video taken with group of teens that were walking home from school one autumn day in September in Newark, Ohio. The girl in the pink hoodie with blue and blonde hair is Alexis Xanders. She was walking with her boyfriend, which they both consider themselves Emo, when they were approached by 6 to 10 other classmates. In the video you can see Alexis and her boyfriend trying to just walk away and ignore the other kids but they are continuing to harass and tug at her backpack all because Alexis made the comment that she didn’t like their favorite band Insane Clown Posse. In the background you can hear other kids saying “hit her” and “punch her”. I was cringing waiting for the moment when you saw the punch. It ended up not being as drastic as I thought but you can still clearly see Alexis get hit.

I can’t believe that such behavior actually exists. In my high school I didn’t see much bullying going on but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t I guess? The other thing that blows my mind is the fact that the bullying crowd video tapped such an action and thought that it was cool enough to post to MySpace. What on earth makes punching someone else in the face because they don’t like the same band as you cool?

The video tape ended up working in Alexis’s favor because the girl that actually recorded it sent to to her on MySpace. Alexis, wanting something to be done about it posted the video to YouTube and then to CNN’s iReport. A local news reporter says the video and alerted the local police. The 15-year-old suspect, whose name cannot be released because she is a minor was charged as a juvenile with individual counts of assault, menacing and unlawful restraint. The Licking County Prosecutor Ken Oswalt said he also confirmed they are looking into charging other people from the video for inciting the fight.

With out this video being posted to YouTube, MySpace, and CNN iReport Alexis would probably have never had the chance to confront the people that hit and bullied her that day. She is a minority of teens that are bullied and actually report what is being done to them. A lot of them don’t have the evidence as Alexis did and she only had that video because the bully’s thought that it was cool and wanted to post to show all their friends. Social Media is now being used for more reasons and purposes than a lot of us first think.

Teens who are 'Sexting'

With this week talking about cell phones I saw an article about an ‘epidemic’ that is happening among teenagers and their cell phones…SEXTING. What exactly is sexting you may ask? It is sharing sexually explicit videos, photos, and chat by cell phone or online. It is becoming a more common thing for the teen generation and even younger to be doing even though it is starting to come with some harsh penalties.

A 16-year old teen boy named Sammy, from the San Francisco Bay Area said he had shared nude pictures of himself with his girlfriends and nude pictures of other people he sent on after getting them from another friend. He said he didn’t realize that other young people from Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania had faced felony charges for doing the same thing.
Research shows that teen’s brains aren’t quite mature enough to make good decisions consistently. They don’t think that this could be potentially harmful for them to participate in and possibly even affect their future. It could get into the wrong hands like potential employees or college admissions office. We have talked about this previously in class that once something is put out on the internet it NEVER goes away or that no matter what you have your Facebook privacy setting on someone will be able to see it and it could harm you down the road.

However, sexting doesn't stop with teenagers. Young adults are even more likely to have sexted; one-third of them said they had been involved in sexting, compared with about one-quarter of teenagers.

In an article from CBSnews.com I read first hand just how serious the law is taking on the subject of ‘sexting’. At the beginning of this year three teenage girls in a western Pennsylvania school had allegedly sent nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures of themselves to three male classmates that are charged with child pornography. The problem here is because the girls are 14 and 15 years old where the boys are 17 years old. When I read that I could not believe what I was reading. When I was that age I was worried about what to wear to school and boys still had cooties. Times are changing and it has only been 8 years since I was that age. What the heck is to come for us in the next 8 years? Another example is an eighth grader from Texas spent the night in a juvenile detention center after his football coach found a picture of a nude female on his cell phone.

I think parents these days need to carefully monitor what their teens are doing. Especially since kids these days are getting cell phones at such an early age. My younger sister is 13 years old and a seventh grader and she still doesn’t have a cell phone. Thank God! I was a senior in high school when I got a cell phone and I survived. Your teen might kick, scream, and yell at you and say you are invading their privacy but like I stated above and research shows that teens don’t always use the best of their judgment.

Heros of 2009

It is the time of year that everyone starts reflecting on their family and friends more than ever and what they are thankful for. A lot of us our answer is our the people in our lives and some have had such a rough year they think for awhile and say it’s hard to find something to be thankful for. I would say that they still have plenty to be thankful for if nothing else for life. I was watching Oprah the other day and she has teamed up with People magazine and has recognized the heroes of 2009. Compared to what some of them have been through I have nothing to complain about.

Oprah definitely started the show out with probably the most miraculous thing that happened this year and that was the plane that crashed on the Hudson River or also known as ‘The Miracle on the Hudson’. It truly was that too because for an airbus that had lost both of its engines to crash in a river and not only have everyone survive the initial crash but also make it out of the freezing cold water as well. She had only a fraction of the first responders on stage including the ferry boat driver, firefighters, police men and women; she also had Capt. Sully who is the one that safely landed the plane on the Hudson along with the divers that were in the water helping to get each passenger to safety. I think the most emotional thing that was on the show was having a passenger reunited with the diver that had pulled her out of the water. She never got to meet or thank him and was very emotional when she finally did. There were also some of the plane crash survivors in the audience and for a few of them it was their first time being on an airplane since the crash. Gosh, how nerve racking that would have been?

Another very touching story was about two high school cheerleaders both named Sara. They were touched so much by volunteering during the Special Olympics that they wanted to incorporate the special needs kids they met into their everyday lives. ‘The Sara’s’ as people call them, are cheerleaders and cheer for the Spartans. They started a cheer program for the young girls that have special needs or learning disabilities and they are called the Sparkles. They have matching uniforms with the Spartans and attend their daily cheer practices. They even get to go to cheer competitions and stand right there alongside the Spartans when they cheer on the football team. They had a few of the parents of the Sparkle cheerleaders and they stood up and wanted to thank the Sara’s for changing their daughter’s lives for the better. They said they are doing so much better in school and now have more confidence than ever.

Another huge part of her show recognizing heroes was the part where she recognized our American Soldiers. She had a video feed from a base in North Carolina where a group of soldiers was just coming home from Iraq. Some soldiers were meeting their baby sons and daughters for the first time. I can’t imagine not being around your family when you have a newborn and missing out on everything they do and learn. Like their first words, and first steps, and even their first teeth. I can guarantee you that those families are probably having the best Thanksgiving yet. Wynona Judd was there to sing and welcome the troop’s home and to celebrate what a true Thanksgiving was.

In my defense…my Facebook status update…?

Who cares about your Facebook status updates?!?!

(Top 25 Facebook status updates…Funny)

I don’t know about you guys but I have some friends on my Facebook account that will constantly tell you what they are doing, eating, watching on TV, or listening to on their IPods…like who cares that much!?! Maybe they have nobody else to talk to and tell them what they are doing or maybe they actually think that people care that they just ate an entire pizza by themselves and are now going to sit down and watch Transformers 2! I barely update my status each week let alone each action I make. I just don’t care that much about what my fellow Facebookers had for dinner that I won’t bother them with the fact that I just ate some chicken tortilla soup and am now catching up on the latest Modern Family episode.

However, in 19-year old Rodney Bradford’s case his status update wondering where his IHOP food was saved him from serving some hard time in jail. It was on the night of October 17 at 11:49 am that he updated his Facebook status asking where his pancakes where that was his lifesaver. The next day he was arrested as a suspect in a robbery at the Farragut House in Brooklyn, where he lives that the status became his alibi. He told his lawyer about the entry he had made in his Facebook account that took place during the suspected robbery that he was accused of committing. The district attorney then subpoenaed Facebook to verify that the status was written from a computer at Mr. Bradford’s address where he lives. When that was confirmed, the charges were dropped.

I am not so sure about this case because who is to say that Rodney Bradford is the one that wrote the status update. He could have easily thought ahead (although unlikely) and had someone post the status update for him. I mean whenever I use my boyfriends computer I never click on ‘log out’ I just close the browser and then later on he will get on his computer to log in to his Facebook account and it will automatically bring up my account. It will sometimes even be hours before he will go on after I have gone on and it still lets you into my account. He always jokes that he is going to put something dumb as my status update. When I saw Mr. Bradford’s story in the newspaper I thought I cannot believe that he is getting off the hook because of Facebook. Facebook really is taking over if it’s counting as an alibi in the court system. This is the first case that a Facebook status has been used to get someone out of trouble. It was a simple robbery charge but what is next? Could Facebook be used in a lot of future trials and cases where something more serious has happened? How can they prove that it was the actual owner of the account and not just some hacker…or a boyfriend that came along and put something because I never officially clicked ‘log-out’. It’s actually kind of scary to think of I think. When I signed up for my Facebook account in September back in 2005 I never thought that I was getting myself into something that would grow this popular.

Do you think that Facebook should be used as alibis in the courts? Is it reliable?

Lists For My Lists

I get in this funk of a mood about this same time every year. I have come to conclude that it is because of all the chaos and stress and the holidays and school and finals week…wow I guess maybe there is a legitimate reason I am in this downer of a mood. I feel like I am a pretty organized person and even have a day planner to keep my days on track and make sure that everything that needs to get done during the week or that day does! From homework, events, projects, visitors, birthdays, and work it all goes in the little calendar of mine and some days I wonder how I ever survived without one.

Then it comes to finals week for school and I want to curl up and hide in a hole until it’s all over with. I have more finals and projects than ever before this semester and I always thought that my last year in college would be a breeze…HA!…where’d I ever get that from? I thought I had good time management and then all of a sudden everything is due on one day and 24 hours in a day just doesn’t seem long enough anymore. Some days I have lists for my lists of school work to be completed and the best order to complete them.

Then comes the Holidays and figuring out family plans, who you are going to see, where you’re going to spend them, presents you need to buy, food that needs to be cooked, and decorations that need to be hung. And to me it feels like I just took the Christmas tree down last week. I always heard my parents say that as you get older the years seem to fly by and I thought surely that doesn’t really happen…does it? Ohhhh it does!

So I was searching around on MSN one day and found on the side bar that it had an article titled ’31 Sneaky Mood Boosters’ and man did I click on that link as fast as my mouse would move. I thought I would try anything at this point to get back in my cheery mood and not be so stressed out. What I found was that by eating different kinds of food would actually boost your mood. I was a little skeptical at first but the more I read and thought about it, it makes complete sense. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC recently did a test with 156 subjects comparing Zoloft to exercising 3 times a week for 45 minutes. They found that the exercise worked just as well as the drug in treating depression and better than the drug in keeping it from returning. The article also states that regular moderate workouts and a healthy diet also reduce stress, anxiety, and fatigue—three underlying causes of moodiness. One of the tips on there that hit me hard was to cut back on caffeine as it actually makes your body more fatigued. I drink A LOT of coffee every morning as it is the only thing that keeps me going…or so I thought.

A few of the 31 tips included:
· Eating breakfast
· Snacking regularly
· Get moving
· Take vitamins and minerals
· Drink Up – water that is!
· Set your workouts to music

I do some of these things in my daily life already but I am going to try to pick a few new ones, stick with them, and maybe my funky mood will go away.

Ft. Hood Tragedy

Tuesdays and Thursdays for me are generally pretty quiet and I am at home all day since I don’t have class and I kind of hole myself up and work on school work. However, I always make time to watch the Ellen DeGeneres show as I find her hilarious and think the show is very entertaining. It was abruptly cut into though and a breaking news update came in from the news station. It was about the shooting on the base of Ft. Hood in Texas. Now I had been home all afternoon with the TV on, watched the local news in the morning, then Good Morning America and even surfed the web throughout the day and hadn’t heard anything about this and it happened Thursday. It wasn’t even the first broadcast of the news it was an update about the number of deaths and informing the community to stay in their houses. Now normally you can find out news from Facebook almost as if it is a play by play broadcast of it while it’s going on. I have quite a few friends on my Facebook account that are either in the military themselves, are the spouse of someone in the military or have extended family or friends in the military. I am very surprised that I haven’t seen anything on anybody’s status saying something about what was going on. I heard of the Dickinson State girls softball tragedy instantly and even saw people’s status remarking about it that aren’t even living in America. It’s crazy how only some news is picked out of it all and spread like wildfire. I am wondering if some people are just getting burned out on hearing all this bad stuff in the news all the time and are giving up on it. How do you personally pick and choose what news is important enough for you to spread the word about? How does it make it onto your Facebook page?

The gunman who was a soldier opened fire at a soldier-processing center killing 11 people, injuring 31 and then he was finally taken out and killed by the local police. There are also two other people detained that are being considered as suspects. The gunman was identified as Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan who was believed to be in his late 30’s or early 40’s.

Ft. Hood has about 40,000 troops and is home to the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division and elements of the 4th Infantry Division, as well as the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 13th Corps Support Command. It is on a base where some of the troops stationed there are currently deployed and it is all the wives, husbands and families of those gone living there and right now in fear of their lives. There are at least 25,000 people on Ft. Hood on any given day. After reading more about Ft. Hood it sounds like a great place to live and the military community there really looks after one another and wants the best. It is home to the Warrior Combat Stress Reset Program, which is designed to help soldiers overcome combat stress issues. In fact in 2009 they have reported only two suicides which is well below those at other posts. In June, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch who is the forts commander said that he was really trying to ease the kinds of stress that soldiers faced. He pushes his soldiers to only work until 6 p.m. during the week so he can be home with his family for dinner. He also makes it that the only way you can work weekends is by special permission from him. Now that sounds like a good deal because who likes to work nights or weekends?

Halloween On A Budget

Halloween has to be one of my absolute favorite holidays. I love decorating my condo for the holiday, the pumpkin carving, the treats, the smells, the themed parties, costumes, Trick-or-Treaters, Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte’s…just EVERYTHING! All this can add up quickly though and everybody knows about the economic depression going on so there isn’t a lot of money to be spent on things that aren’t necessary. However, all this can be done on a budget and do-it yourself costumes.

Some of this really isn’t out of the ordinary for me though because when I was young mom and dad and we kids would always make our costumes. We have five kids in our family and imagine spending just $20 bucks on a store bought costume for each kid would add up to a quick $100. Plus, store bought costumes were never as creative as we were. In fact, my worst Halloween costume came from one bought at Wal-Mart...Hold your breath for this one…I was Barney!!! Yes that singing purple dinosaur. I think back and when I even look at pictures I ask myself how on earth could my parents let me do that to myself. Good Grief! Anyways, back to the homemade costumes. I was Pocahontas, a vampire, a mummy, a blind ref (haha), a camouflaged hunter one year when it was freezing cold, Goldilocks, a Flapper girl, Cruella DeVille, and many more I am sure I can’t recall. Here is a costume contest that my boyfriend Micah actually entered for his costume of Aladdin. He always has the best costumes but go figure he is an engineering student so he should. He was ‘flying’ the magic carpet but the feet you see aren’t actually his because he is standing on 6’ painters stilts. His friend Caleb was the Genie and he actually shaved his head and glued a fake ponytail on the top of his head to really look the part. He as well was standing on painters stilts. He didn’t make the cut with his but you can see how creative some of the other contestants got.

Halloween parties have to be one of my next favorite events for the holiday. I love to decorate for them and also being able to see everyone else’s costumes is so much fun. Here you can get pointers on how to make very cool, creepy, and inexpensive Halloween decorations for your party. Who doesn’t love a bleeding candle or a coffin as your coffee table or even bats flying out of your fireplace. A place that I found to have some of the best decorations for inexpensive down here in Baton Rouge was the Dollar Tree. Sometimes dollar stores are a hit or a miss with the quality of items you are buying but for $1 each I got some really cool skeleton mugs and fall garland and some other miscellaneous items that will look great all put together. This segment from Good Morning America was very helpful if you want some ideas to make your Halloween party still the best even if the economy is a bust your party doesn’t have to be.