Thanks to the rise of social media, we can keep in touch with our friends and families living on the other side of the world, and share our daily activities with them. Not only that, but nowadays it feels like our lives are revolved around the usage of social media and that it has integrated to be a part of our lives. Think about all the times we have spent checking Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or other social media platforms daily. Nevertheless, there is also a dark side of social media. According to Marsh (2017), almost half of the girls in the UK have experienced some sort of harassment or abuse on social media while 40% of boys have also experienced similar bullying experiences online. Sometimes cyberbullying could be much more worse, resulting cyberbullying victims to take their own lives when they couldn’t stand against the constant online bullying anymore (NoBullying.com, 2017).
Recently, an app has been created named “Tbh”, the abbreviation of “To Be Honest”, with the goal to encourage teenagers to be kind towards each other. This app has become so popular since its launch 9 weeks ago that it has been downloaded more than 5 million times (Lee, 2017). In fact, Facebook acquired the app recently for an undisclosed fee too, since they believe that they share the same goal of building community and enabling people to share in ways that bring us closer together (Liao, 2017). The cool thing about Tbh is that it allows you to send prewritten complements to your friends as seen on the picture above. How it basically works is that after you import your contact list into the app, the app will show predetermined questions such as “Who has the best smile?” and 3-4 names will pop up. Then you have to answer the question by selecting one your friends who you believe has the best smile. In the end, your friends who are selected will be notified, but who selected them will be kept anonymous.
This app strives to create a positive and interactive environment online, where it encourages users to give each other compliments in a fun and mysterious way. With the introduction of Tbh, I believe that more apps with similar positive interactions will start coming, as it will also help minimize cyberbullying indirectly. What do you think? Would you also like to use Tbh?
Bibliography
Lee, D., 2017. Facebook buys weeks-old app for teens to be nice to each other. [Online]
Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41646738
[Accessed 18 October 2017].
Liao, S., 2017. Facebook buys app that lets teens send each other compliments. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/16/16485428/facebook-tbh-to-be-honest-acquisition-ios-app
[Accessed 18 October 2017].
Marsh, S., 2017. Half of UK girls are bullied on social media, says survey. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/14/half-uk-girls-bullied-social-media-survey
[Accessed 18 October 2017].
NoBullying.com, 2017. The Top Six Unforgettable CyberBullying Cases Ever. [Online]
Available at: http://nobullying.com/six-unforgettable-cyber-bullying-cases/
[Accessed 18 October 2017].
