Over the past few years, social media hit its peak. Kids at Prior Lake High School are on Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, VSCO, and can’t get enough. The popularity of these sites comes at a high cost: cyber bullying. Despite movements to eradicate cyber bullying, this harassment continues  and emotionally scars children using the popular social media sites.

Cyber bulling is perpetuated through the creation of private pages on social media sites to target other kids in their school. These pages call other kids out for their differences and insecurities, make fun of actions and choices others make, and show private information about the other students at their school.

These harmful pages exist in Prior Lake Savage Area Schools. Popular accounts on social media that cyber bully students at Prior Lake High School are run under the usernames PLHS Polls and PL Pass Outs.

PLHS Polls is a page designated to call out individuals in the school for their insecurities, problems, and many other things. The account post polls their followers regarding certain aspects of a student, then the account’s followers can vote for answer they think is the most true. Anyone can send in a poll they want tweeted anonymously through the website called ask.com.

Ask.com, another form of social media, was originally intended for the purpose of kids asking other kids questions, and then getting answers anonymously. Ask.com gives the shy children opportunities to use their voice. The website with —– suddenly took a turn for the worse when students began cyber bulling other students anonymously. 

Most cyber bullying accounts are made to get a good laugh at the expense of other kids and gain followers on their account. Prior Lake senior Claudia Mahoney stated that “the pages are funny to a point, but when things start getting personal, it crosses a major line.”

Riley Swanson, another Prior Lake High School senior, gave us her opinion on these pages as well. Swanson states, “I don’t think some of the things put on social media are what we want our school to stand for.”

This statement is heard frequently around the high school. Kids believe that the pages are tarnishing the reputation of Prior Lake High School.

Although the recent push by the administrators at Prior Lake High School for respectful behavior online has helped diminish the amount of cyber bulling on social media platforms, there is no permanent solution to stop cyber bullying. Prior Lake High School hopes that as the school year progresses, student will realize that their words have an impact of the lives of their peers.