Dear Users of Yik Yak,
It is time to recognize that using Yik Yak in malicious ways is immature, inappropriate, and shameful behavior. By using an app that allows you to target someone, you are tearing down the self-esteem and reputations of your fellow classmates while hiding behind anonymity because you know that what you are saying should not be said at all.
If you’re reading this and have not yet heard of Yik Yak, that’s a good thing. However we encourage you to learn about this mobile application that allows its users within the same area to write comments anonymously. To sum it up, it is a type of mobile bulletin board that our generation has been using to ridicule and harass one another.
Users: before you posted a hurtful comment, did you think about the ways it could affect that person? Did you think for a moment that they might become so embarrassed that they no longer want to show up to the dining hall because of what you’ve posted about them? Or how about the ways your words can single handedly affect their attitude, and hurt them in a way you wouldn’t understand? Well, it’s starting to happen. You have no idea what someone could be going through and one comment on Yik Yak could be the comment that puts him or her over the edge.
Think of it this way, would you want to be responsible for the nasty comment that led someone to drop out of Fairfield, or much worse, possibly attempt to take their life? That’s not being dramatic, that is being real. Words are powerful, they can be hurtful; don’t wait until a tragedy happens to finally stop the malicious and vulgar use of Yik Yak.
There is a similar website called Ask.fm in Europe which is an anonymous question and answer site, that also allows users to engage in running battles and arguments; fairly similar to our Yik Yak. As of September 13, 2013 nine teenagers connected to Ask.fm committed suicide and as of last week another teenager took her life due to it. Does that scare you? Well, it should. There is nothing positive about calling that girl a sl*t over and over, and there is no reason to tell that boy to transfer another time.
Fairfield University students: we are smarter than the way we’ve been acting. There is no need for us to degrade or diminish one another; after all we are supposed to be a community. There is no denying that not everyone gets along, but even then you wouldn’t want to see something tragic happen to one of our own.
Take the initiative now and delete Yik Yak off of your phone. Let’s collectively acknowledge the serious harms of this application without waiting for someone to get seriously harmed before we do so. We, as the Fairfield Community, are better than this.
Signed,The Her Campus Fairfield Team
Sources: http://www.businessinsider.com/askfm-and-teen-suicides-2013-9http://www….
Photo Credit:http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/22/after-cyberbullying-scandal-anonymous-s…