Well, did you?
If you don’t understand my above query, I’m talking about the popular app, YikYak. In a nutshell, you can post whatever you want and see others posts within a certain mile radius of you. Another fun feature of this app is that everything is anonymous. There are no names, emails, or even usernames attached. You can probably already see where the problem arises.
But before we get to that, let’s talk about some positives of the app. It can be informative in some ways. A recent post asked for skin and hair care tips. People replied with some great pointers. In special cases, it can offer some helpful information. If you need to know where there’s a good party tonight, YikYak might tell you the truth. Sometimes people are really funny on there, too. But that’s about where the positives end.
It can be a source of entertainment, but have you ever stopped to think about what you’re laughing at? Jokes are often made at the expense of others. A main point of YikYak is anonymity, but that doesn’t stop people from name dropping left and right. With anonymity comes a certain confidence that people would not normally have. If you are not going to get in any trouble for saying this mean, horrible thing, then why not post it? Well, news flash – none of this is really anonymous.
At a base level, it is. No one who is just casually scrolling through the app can see who you are when you post. But if you were to say something that caught the attention of law enforcement? Hell yeah, they can find out who you are. Want to know how I know? It happened at my high school.
My high school was a typical suburban cliché high school straight out of a movie. There were cliques and bullying and scandals and all that. YikYak wasn’t really popular until the middle of my senior year. A group of popular girls all decided to take shots at a few other girls who were their friends but also not really their friends (you know how it is). Anyways this cyberbullying got to be really bad, but no one thought anything of it because it’s all anonymous. So long story short, the girls getting bullied went to the police and found out who had been posting that stuff. The cyberbullies got in a lot of trouble with the school and the police. I think it’s safe to say they learned a valuable lesson. Nothing is anonymous. If people want to find out who is writing what, they will.
So now that you know YikYak isn’t really hiding your identity from everybody, maybe reflect on what you post before you post it.