Balancing school, friends, relationships, drama and family are just everyday tasks of the normal teenager… But what if adults you weren’t very familiar with started interfering with those everyday tasks and your personal life after school hours? It’s one thing to control what you do in school but another for school administration to punish you for things you do outside of school.
The first amendment in the constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” So why should students be punished for their freedom of speech on social media? Then again, how far is “too far,” or is there even a “too far”?
February of 2014, Demi Grant, a student of Hartsville High School, South Carolina, was suspended for favoriting a tweet on an anonymous Twitter account that was harassing another student. There was no name in the tweet and Grant stated that she “didn’t mean to hurt anybody,” but yet was she still suspended. How is freedom of speech possible if freedom of liking a post isn’t tolerated? Out of many cases in the current age, Grant’s story is very mild and less severe than most.
According to aacap.org, suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15-24 year olds. Many cases of teen suicide can be linked to cyber bullying. On the popular app Ask.fm, users are allowed to send and/or answer anonymous questions from anybody that goes to their profile. Because of this app, many teenagers have been bullied and called names. Ciara Pugsley, 15 years old of Ireland, committed suicide after being called “ugly” and other harsh words on Ask.fm. The last question somebody asked her was “Whats been up with u” and she replied, “U’ll see soon!” Pugsley’s school was never involved and never intervened.
How far is too far when it comes to schools being connected to students private social media websites? Should schools be familiar with students social media before it’s too late, or should they keep away and stay out of students outside life, and only help when a student speaks up?
Here at Milford High School, when the new app “After School” came out, the whole school was discussing it, with more than 500 people from Milford High School active on the app. On “After School”, anonymous confessions, advice, etc. are allowed to be posted about anything or even worse, everybody. Besides the occasional compliments, rumors were spreading like wildfire and people were being anonymously harassed. From being bullied about weight, their activities outside of school, or even how a student looked. A few of the posts could have the potential to ruin a student’s future. After about 3 or 4 days of the app being up and open to students, a letter was sent out to all parents from administration telling them to monitor their childrens social media. Out of 50 students asked, 46 Milford High School students believe that schools should stay away from students social media apps because it’s a part of students personal lives.
The governor of California passed a law recently stating that schools are allowed to collect information from students personal accounts if and only if the content is related to the students privacy, the students parents must be notified when their childs social media account is being monitored, and schools must destroy social media records after no more than a year after the child leaves the school. While on the other hand, Illinois passed a law granting access to students social media profiles and made it legal to monitor students websites at all times.
At Milford High School, most students are punished because of anonymous submissions of screenshots of posts sent into to the office.
The two sides of the argument are really against what individual rights a person has, and the fact that some kids are getting bullied to the point of suicide over social media and nobody is stopping it besides school administration. The further technology advances, it seems the more interested schools become in students social media.
Is there a point in time that comes and schools need to say “Alright this needs to be stopped,” or is that violating one’s individual rights? Only time will really tell if schools will start making rules about social media posts, or if they will not monitor students social media as much, but until then, opinion is the main choice of this topic!