Apps such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat all fall under one category called social media. Over the years, social media apps have influenced an enormous amount of cyber bullying, surrounding high schoolers with a feeding ground for bullying.

In late November, a new app under the name of Peeple will be released to the public. Peeple is an app that will allow users to rate anyone that they would like to anonymously, on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, but with prohibits on commenting. The app is still under examination as to whether it is a valuable app for the people or another source for cyberbullying as noted. Peeple will allow the common user to directly target one specific person behind the safety of the internet.

Jenna Simons (‘17) said, “I think if the app is released there will be a lot of problems with bullying, similar to how there were problems at some schools with the app Yik Yak.”

Yik Yak acts as an anonymous source through which users can post comments that others in the area can view. Students at Haddonfield Memorial High School were punished for the use of the app, which eventually became banned.

Students were also asked how the app Peeple could relate to social media apps such as Twitter and Ask.fm. Some students believed other social media applications did not resemble Peeple while others did.

Lauren Atkin (‘18) said, “[Peeple] is different because its sole purpose is to judge others whereas twitter can be used for that, but that’s not what [twitter] was intended for.”

“The most similar app is Ask.fm and that is causing so much trouble already,” said Rachel Mirsen (‘19).

Yelp, another application that was introduced in October of 2004, is used to rate restaurants. Peeple strives to be a yelp for humans.

Forty-three percent of kids have been bullied online and one in four kids have been bullied more than once. This number will most likely not decrease if Peeple is released. Peeple allows and even encourages judgmental users to criticize others. Encouragement of bullying should never be influenced nor seen for the good of the people.