If you don’t have a Facebook, you don’t exist, right? And texting is obviously a must…

Parents tend to think that taking either of these social outlets away from their children will alienate them from peers.

But what happens when teens and tweens use social media and take the content a little too far? Furthermore, what happens when fellow college aged students do the same?

As independent adults we don’t have parents telling us not to be bullies. But by now we should know better than to use harsh words to hurt others.

Cyber bullying doesn’t go away once you graduate high school. In college it is just as much of a threat as it was when we were under our parents watch.

We all know after seeing “The Social Network” that bullying persists beyond high school.

Mark Zuckerberg’s “hot-or-not” style website called Facemash proved that college students are ruthless against one another.

Most studies focus on teen life and online harassment’s association with suicide. But that is negligent to a very large demographic.

Almost nine percent of college students admit to having bullied someone else via text or social media. Another 22 percent admit to being the victims of cyber bullying.

Who taught us that it is okay to criticize others and that to tell a boy to “kill himself” is appropriate slang? Where did this mindset come from?

Kids are learning these harmful phrases younger and younger. In the long run, they only harm themselves and each other.

Rebecca Sedwick, a 12-year-old Florida girl, recently committed suicide due to “cyber bullying” by a 14-year-old who was upset that Rebecca had dated her boyfriend.

After a month of investigation, two teens have been arrested and charged for contributing to her death.

It all started in December 2012, when the 14-year-old began harassing Rebecca on Facebook.

Taunting and teasing led to one of the youngest suicides caused by online bullying, all because of a boy.

Playing down the importance of online safety has never been more concerning.

Now two young girls are facing charges of aggravated stalking, which is a third-degree felony in Florida. The younger of the two, who “expressed remorse,” is under house arrest, while the other is being held in the juvenile wing of Polk County Jail.

This is utterly disturbing.

Although laws are enacted to prevent cyber bullying in many states, it is up to mom and dad be the “best parent,” not “best friend.”

Sheriff Grady Judd of Polk County has the right idea.

“I’m aggravated that the parents are not doing what parents should do: after she is questioned and involved in this, why does she even have a [phone]?” said Sheriff Judd in a New York Times article. “Parents, who instead of taking that [phone] and smashing it into a thousand pieces in front of that child, say her account was hacked.”

It’s shocking when a 12 or 14-year-old cusses online and tells others to kill themselves, but by college, we are all so hardened to these phrases that it barely seems consequential.

But it is.

Suicide and bullying is not light-hearted no matter your age.

When you tell a friend to “kill themselves,” how do you know you aren’t actually striking a nerve, causing physical and mental damage and leading them to a detrimental act?

You don’t.