Is Sarahah promoting CyberBullying?
IS SARAHAH PROMOTING CYBERBULLYING
INTRODUCTION
What is Cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying is defined as using a computer or any other means of an electronic device to intimidate, threaten or humiliate another individual.
Social networking takes cyberbullying to the next level. Earlier in high schools children used to get bullied, they used to listen to spiteful comments, typical name-calling &, etc. but now people of almost any age group are getting targeted by different forms of bullying via the Internet.
Here, “Sarahah” is an Arabic word which roughly means “honesty”, also this is an app which was developed by ZainAlabdin Tawfiq an Arabic by birth. This app went viral for its unique feature which was sending an anonymous message to any person around the globe. But does this app promote cyberbullying too?
QUOTE
“Checking in on what our kids are doing online isn’t helicoptering, it’s parenting.” –Galit Breen
“Being a bully on the internet is a sign of insecurity and weakness.” – Rev Run
“If you’re insulting people on the internet, you must be ugly on the inside.“– Phil Lester
STATISTICS – What Numbers have to Say?
- This whole idea was so viral that Sarahah was on the top apps on Apple App Store in over 30 countries; also to add on according to a report from BBC Sarahah app has already registered over 300 million accounts already.
- According to Ditch the Label research, cyberbullying has affected around 17% of people under the age of 20, this percentage is at risk of soaring to greater heights with the influence of such apps although having a 2.9-star rating on Play Store.
- According to the Annual Bullying Survey 2017, 41% of the people who had participated in the survey said that they had developed social anxiety as a direct result of cyberbullying, 37% developed depression & about 26 % had suicidal thoughts.
- According to Cyberbullying statistics from the I-SAFE foundation, over 25 per cent of adolescents and teens have been bullied repeatedly through their cell phones or the internet.
DESCRIPTION -Let’s take a Deep Dive Sarahah CyberBullying
Considering the Google Play Store apps description, “Sarahah helps people self-develop by receiving constructive anonymous feedback”. Furthermore, this app doesn’t ask you for a phone number which caters the ability to be anonymous on the globe.
So the user is provided with a link indeed clicking on which a text box pop’s up wherein its written the very famous “Leave a constructive message”, commonly that “constructive” word is missed by most people out there. People type their desired message over there after clicking the send message button, it is pushed to the receiver’s terminal device.
This app serves as a perfect spot for cyber-bullying although this app features with having some privacy & security options. Starting from disabling the “appear in search” option or may report some abusive comments posted. The main root of this app going popular these days is that it lets its user say anything to everything without any consequences of disclosing their identity. So people often tend to release their thoughts through the message they want to send instead of saying them personally.
Delivering such a platform to openly express thoughts also invites the risk of doubling the risk of cyberbullying as the teens especially are not capable enough to handle such freedom of expression and may soar to different lengths that can be seriously harmful too. It could sometimes lead to accelerating some unpleasant circumstances which may give a major setback to the teenage group.
Sarahah CyberBullying
GOOD SIDE
- There is always a room for improvement, through this app you might get to know about your personality, your true reflection & can help you mould into a better personality than you currently are.
- Sometimes it can also be used as a tool for creating awareness in times of any crisis, in order to be prepared for the crisis that might happen, so that they are well-informed, such as in case of any propagating natural disaster approaching an area, we can very well keep them informed about this so that further while mitigating this effect it wouldn’t take much time for its recovery.
BAD SIDE
- Being an open and anonymous platform, some comments might hurt your sentiments which might drag down your self-confidence & end up pushing you in the well of depression.
- Cyberbullying is one of the major concerns that often crops up with anonymous messaging apps such as Whisper, Secret, Sarahah &, etc.
- Also, one more drawback of this app can be that we cannot reply back to the anonymous person who has sent that particular message making it inconvenient for having a chat with any other person.
CONCLUSION
Aggregating, we can say that we should use the app in the correct way & promote the same too for useful purposes. Teens have been adding the Sarahah links in their bio of Instagram account for them to get anonymous feedback. This app might be catching upon with an influential user group which is good news.
Author: Aman Gupta
Scrutiny: Riya Chandra
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By reading this scenario, I believe that this app have more cons than pros.
Or I may be wrong but i wanted to conclude that as you said it can be tool for getting us aware about natural calamities but for that our social media and our social connections now-a-days are so strong, that we don’t need this app for awareness of natural calamity .
And Second point -getting our true reflection and improving ourself for that ,no other person is needed to guide us, Our true friends, our family are capable enough to confront us because they know us more better than anyone. And Apparently somehow its human nature we don’t listen anyone or neither by reading some random comments we will think of changing ourselves.
Infact this will end us up by having no respect for self, no confidence,no dignity, nothing because negative affect more than positive!!