CHS Takes on Instagram
Imagine this: It’s a beautiful morning in Caledonia, as it almost always is. You wake up and check your Instagram like you would do any other day, but this time is different: you see that 5 accounts want to follow you. You look to see who they are, and to your surprise, they are named sleeping in class, broken clock, bad parking, and bathroom feet, among other weird account pages from your high school, which is something you never thought you would see. You quickly go through all of the accounts and laugh at all of the photos and videos, yet one thing is still on your mind: who made these accounts, and will I be put on them?
Random social media accounts, as listed above, were made on Instagram by students here at CHS. This erupted in a series of issues that led to an email being sent out to both students and parents about what the accounts are doing to some of the kids who were put on the pages.
“I felt that I had to watch my every move to make sure no one was taking photos of me. It was nerve-wracking to think about me going on one of the Instagram pages, not to mention how embarrassing that could’ve been,” Ryan Tafelsky, a sophomore, said.
This echoes how other students feel about the problem. Although the Instagram accounts were viewed as entertaining, students couldn’t help but think about the possibility of being put on the page themselves, or feel bad for those who did get put onto the page. This is why the school had to take down all of the Instagram accounts and give disciplinary actions for those who ran the accounts throughout late November and early December.
“It was fun while it lasted, but I’m glad it’s done now,” Sophomore Eliana Karadsheh said about the issue.
The school response is viewed as necessary for the safety of CHS students, and the main goal for Caledonia right now is to make everyone feel welcomed into the school. With the persistence of such disregard of the privacy of other students, administrators feel that the school environment would be severely compromised, which is why they took the immediate action that was required then and is continuing to be taken.
