Anonymity has been taken to a whole new level with a sudden boom in popularity with social media app, Yik Yak.
According to an article on FoxNews.com written by Joshua Rhett Miller, “Yik Yak was launched in December by 23-year-old entrepreneurs Brooks Buffington and Tyler Droll, two recent college graduates who designed the app to work like a virtual bulletin board for any 1.5 mile radius.”
Yik Yak is an app where users can make posts for anyone within their radius to see.
Whoever views these posts has the ability to up-vote or down-vote the posts.
The most controversial part of it all is that it’s totally anonymous. What’s wrong with that you might wonder? I’d say just about everything.
Philip Bergeron / Graphics Editor
Anonymity allows people the opportunity to hide behind their computers or phone screens and make comments about others without suffering the consequences.
This is not to say that everyone who uses the app has bad intentions. Not every post found on Yik Yak is a negative one, however, it only takes a few inappropriate comments before things get blown completely out of proportion.
There have been recent incidents at nearby schools where the app was used so inappropriately, the school decided to block the app entirely.
Norwich University, located just under two hours away from Keene in Northfield, Vt., has recently blocked access to the app on campus.
The university’s president Richard Schneider had to take the necessary action to block the app to send a message to his students.
He said in a Huffington Post article written by Wilson Ring, “I just know that it is hurting my students right now,” he said, “They are feeling awkward, they are feeling hurt, they are feeling threatened.”
In the case at Norwich, students were using it as a way to cyberbully other students on campus.
It was used in a cruel and ruthless manner that put students in such discomfort they didn’t even feel safe in their own school environment. You can bet your bottom dollar this is happening at more schools than just Norwich. Based off some of the posts I’ve read here at Keene State, you could say that I’m less than impressed with our school and what we have to say about our fellow classmates.
Of course there are many people out there who use the app tastefully and say things that are completely harmless. However, it is those select few using it maliciously who ruin it for us all. Unfortunately, I think our generation has relied on technology so much that we pounce on any opportunity to communicate with people in a virtual way instead of being face-to-face. This is not to say that I prefer people to insult others to their face, but I believe that if apps like this didn’t exist, we would not have the amount of bullying that we do.
College is a place of learning, growth and self-discovery. It should not be a place where people feel uncomfortable being themselves because they may later find an anonymous post on a social media website putting them down.
As cliché as it sounds, I think we all need to revisit what we learned during our elementary school years. As juvenile as this saying may sound, I have found this to hold so much truth throughout my 20 years of life. We need to refer back to that golden rule we learned so long ago: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
Sabrina Lapointe can be contacted at slapointe@keene-equinoc.com