By Katy Ryan
In-Depth Editor 
Sophomore Sabrina Przytula got a text from one of her friends telling her to avoid the app Yik Yak for the day and reminding her that her friends love her. Przytula’s curiosity got the best of her and she ended up checking the app only to see people posting rude things about her appearance.
“At first I was like, ‘Oh. OK. Whatever,’” Przytula said.  “And then it kept happening, and I was like, ‘OK this is making me mad. This needs to stop.’”
Przytula is one of the many students who have been targeted on Yik Yak, an app that allows users to make anonymous posts, called “yaks,” that can be viewed within a five mile radius of the user’s location.
The app was launched in November of 2013 to help college students form a feeling of community on their campus. It has since gained popularity with high school students, some of whom abuse the app’s anonymity to cyberbully their peers.
Since the feeds are created only near college campuses, and users aren’t allowed to post when near a middle or high school, the app discourages younger users. It also has a pop-up when you first download the app asking you to confirm whether or not you are an adult. Technically, high schoolers shouldn’t be on the app at all, but there is no way to verify a user’s age.
“I feel like it should be for college kids, not just high schoolers wanting to be funny,” Przytula said. ”The app itself isn’t bad because you can [post] funny things or upsetting things for people’s advice. How the high schoolers took advantage of it kind of made it a bad app.”
Today it has become easier than ever for students to hide behind a screen. According to school psychologist Dr. Jay Kyp-Johnson, cyberbullying is more attractive to a bully than confronting someone face-to-face because behavior is tied to a person’s surroundings.
“When people are on their digital devices, usually in their home or maybe in their room, they have this behavioral sense that it’s kind of private,” Kyp-Johnson said. “But it’s not: not at all.”
Bullies also feel like what they are saying can be secret when it’s over the internet, like they are talking directly to the victim. They also feel like they can get away with more, since they are not saying anything out loud.
“There are all these circumstances that give people sort of an unreal sense where you used to have to look people in the eyes if you wanted to say something to them,” Kyp-Johnson said. “It gives them this kind of sense that this is kind of a thing between just you and me. … [It] gives some people a sense that they can do things without consequence.”
Since a bully believes that there will be no consequence for anonymously posting something rude, they don’t stop to think about how the post will affect the victim.
“I believe that they don’t take it seriously because they think, ‘Oh, it’s just going to be online. Nobody’s gonna care about it,’” Przytula said. “‘They’re going to see it, and it’s not going to be coming from my mouth; it’s going to be coming from anyone else’s.’”
According to Kyp-Johnson, this is becoming a dangerous trend.
“There’s a thread in our culture that makes it fun to pick on other people and laugh at other people,” Kyp-Johnson said. “Why wouldn’t we think that if you provided somebody with an anonymous forum where you can say anything you want [with] no consequence? You’re just asking people to go nuts.”
Since Yik Yak fosters feelings of privacy, there are many posts that target certain groups or contain offensive material.
However, offensive yaks do not always stay in the feed. The app allows users to up- or down-vote yaks, and when a yak gets a net of -5 votes, it is deleted. Yaks that have offensive content, target a person or spam can be reported. In yak feeds that are constantly getting new posts, users can only see yaks for a short amount of time because the newer posts push off the older ones.
Przytula estimates that the posts made about her were only up on Yik Yak for about 20 minutes.
Even though they didn’t reach a widespread audience in that period of time, the posts about Przytula were brought to more students’ attention after she took a screenshot of the offensive yak and tweeted it. She asked her followers to help people up instead of putting them down. People responded positively to her tweet by favoriting it and responding to the offensive yak with kind words about Przytula.
Knights’ Way had a similar theme in its last topic and tried to encourage kids to be kind to others on social media, using the hashtag #bethepower to promote a positive attitude.
“I think students were very happy with it,” Knights’ Way sponsor Kyp-Johnson said. “I know the district, the board and the superintendent were happy with it, and we’ve been contacted now by a student at another school who wants to do the same thing at [Wheeling]. So not only did we get a good reaction from people, but now we’re getting some good action from other people.”
#bethepower became the second most trending hashtag on Twitter shortly after Knights’ Way.
“It’s nice to be trending for a good reason and a good cause,” Kyp-Johnson said.
Even though Knights’ Way brought the problem of cyberbullying to students’ attention, Kyp-Johnson thinks there is still a long way to go.
“For some reason, even though we talk about bullying and we make all kinds of [events] about bullying, we’re missing the mark with a lot of people who still think it’s funny and getting away with it’s OK,” Kyp-Johnson said.
Although the message still needs to get through to some students, Przytula has gained a new perspective after being cyberbullied.
“I’ve learned that you need to have a high self esteem and confidence,” Przytula said. “Even if you don’t, you should make others feel happy and make them feel wanted so they don’t feel alone.”