Teen Stress/Depression

Many fail to realize the devastating effects of teen depression. This extreme attitude plagues our schools and communities, taking away the worthiness of each and every individual. These individuals feel left out, neglected and deprived of hope. This video explains the various causes and effects of depression in teens.

Student Stalking: Why is this legal?

Many students fail to realize they are being watched right this second, no matter where they are.

The Glendale School District recently dealt with many cases of bullying and student suicides. In an attempt to control the situation they have partnered up with Geo Listening, an organization that accesses and monitors each and every student's posts on social media sites to look for any flagged posts that may signal a problem. This is done in hopes of "helping" the student before the situation gets out of hand. It sounds like a good idea on the surface, however there is also an underlying issue. This is being done indirectly and without the parent's consent. Would anybody want someone to secretly monitor them?

Geo Listening aims to help troubled students with the problems they face.

The actions taken by the school district make sense to a certain extent. Afterall, they are trying to help students in distress. However, many would argue  that monitoring someone's private page (where they are free to express their feelings) is a violation of their civil liberties. In addition, there is the potential that information collected could be used for purposes other than helping bullied students. The question then becomes "why is this information being collected and how do you guarantee that it is being used in the proper way?" For example, who knows the reason why Harriton High School spied on their students via computer webcams?

Schools and students aside, this is related to something similar on a bigger scale. Does the National Security Agency (NSA for short) ring a bell? The NSA claims to be "protecting everyone" by grabbing information that people are not willing to share with the rest of the world and use it to track down potential threats. Take a moment to look at Edward Snowden's view on this sitiuation.

For those unfamiliar with him, Snowden worked for the NSA and revealed the shocking truth about the organization's activities to the public. He was convicted of treason as a result.

The point is, it is not right to spy on anyone without approval or consent, regardless of reason. Everyone is entitled to privacy and freedom of speech, but it all seems meaningless when  those rights are taken away. How does this affect  individual rights?