PSN is an online community for people with the play station video game systems. Just like any social network, you can have friends, send and receive messages, pictures, share music, videos, join your friend's game lobby and even create chat rooms where you can have a group chat. Recently they have developed new apps that allows a player to go online and still be able to chat with their friends, interact, share etc right from their smart phones which I think is really cool.
If you've ever owned a play station system then you probably like the multi player aspect to it. This is what allows players from different parts of the world to come together and play any game they'd like to play with their friends and others online as well. This all sounds fun and "cool" but it isn't entirely the case all the time. Sometimes the very place where people go to have fun online, play together and socialize can be the very place where people are made to feel weird, different, lame and not cool. What might I be talking about? Cyber bullying. In the readings "Bullying as true drama. The New York Times online edition" it talks about a 14 year old boy Jamey Rodemeyer who had committed suicide after being bullied by his friends and calling him gay. This incident happened outside the online community but it is very much alive in the world of video gaming. I am a big gamer myself and it is very common to see bullying every time I play with other people on the PSN. People pick on each other; call each other names using profanity and foul language on others who appear to be less aggressive. In my opinion I've realized that most people with a Spanish accent get called names on a regular basis, others who sound black are called other names and so do other white people who's accents sound a bit of the Western/South. Occasionally you see others pick on players who are girls simply because they are women and this bullying goes on day in and out.
Despite all efforts to ban certain users and players from the online community, not much has been accomplished because not much is reported to the authority. Like the article stated, most teenagers who become victims of this terrible act normally just say it’s just "drama" and dismiss the issue. When someone tries to help they refuse and make reasons for it because they think they can handle it themselves. I highly dislike cyber bullying and bullying in general, I think it can leave a person devastated for their entire life and such practices that happen online should not be tolerated. It is my hopes that we learn from the past unfortunate incidents and stop this act in the online community as well as in real life.
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