The internet has a lot to offer, and one of the best ways to experience it is through social media. There, you can socialize and have a reliable connection with other people in all parts of the globe. But along with its benefits, social media is not a safe space, especially when you are dealing with mental and emotional stress due to hate, cyberbullying, and online harassment.
What Is Cyberbullying
The use of computer technology to intimidate, harass, humiliate, or target another individual is known as cyberbullying. It is just like traditional bullying but in the online space. Threats made digitally, as well as nasty, violent, or harsh public posts, tweets, texts, or messages, all qualify. Posting private pictures, recordings, or other content intending to hurt or embarrass another individual also counts.
Bullying via online platforms, such as gadgets such as tablets, computers, and cell phones, is known as cyberbullying. It can also happen online via social media, forums, or games where users can watch, interact with, or exchange material. It can also happen via text messages, phone calls, and apps. It involves distributing, publishing, or circulating hurtful, foul, misleading, or derogatory content that would publicly shame or degrade another person.
Some specifics of cyberbullying cases include posting mean or hurtful comments about the victim online, spreading rumors, commenting with sexual meaning, impersonating the individual, commenting negatively about the individual, race, color, sexual orientation, and religion, and creating a hurtful webpage about the victim.
Bullies occasionally utilize group conversations as a means of organizing an attack on a single victim. Additionally, they occasionally break into a person’s account and alter any content, including an image or the “About Me” section, to anything offensive or dangerous. Some take pictures of people in their underwear or other demeaning situations without their permission and share them widely on social media.
There are several sites available for cyberbullies to use in their attempts to harass, hurt, humiliate, threaten, or put off others. Just a few of the potential media networks are Reddit, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Special Concerns
Due to the widespread use of social media and online forums, people’s shared content—including postings, images, comments, and posts—can frequently be viewed by individuals who are not acquainted with them. Anything a person posts online, whether private or offensive, cruel or unpleasant, leaves an irreversible publicly accessible record of their opinions, actions, and behaviors.
This widely available record, which may be compared to an online reputation, may be viewed by organizations, educational institutions, universities, schools, clubs, and other organizations doing current or future background checks. Cyberbullying can damage the online good standing of all parties involved, including the tormented individual as well as those who engage in the cyberbullying act.
Concerns about cyberbullying are distinctive since it might be:
Persistent
Since cell phones and other electronic devices allow for instantaneous and continuous communication around the clock, it might be challenging for those individuals who are being bullied online to seek and get help.
Permanent
If not reported and deleted, most information shared through digital devices is permanent and available to the public. A bad internet public image can affect a victim’s reputation and ability to get work, get into better schools and universities, and succeed in other facets of life. A bully spreading cruel information and hurtful messages digitally and through social media accounts can have far-reaching consequences.
Hard to Notice
It can be more difficult to identify cyberbullying because parents and teachers might not hear or witness it when cyberbullying occurs.
Hard Truth About Cyberbullying
It isn’t easy to deal with cyberbullying when you are the target of it. It seems you’re stuck with nowhere to go but downward. Targets of cyberbullying rarely get the chance to stand up for themselves. There are no parents or teachers to witness what is happening and step in to end it. Additionally, cyberbullying can occur in a completely private setting, giving the person being harassed little way to take action or report the abusive individual to a higher authority. Additionally, it can use social media platforms to quickly and negatively expose bullying instances to thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people.
The bully can easily make a new account if the victim decides to block them on social media and knows who the abuser is. Alternatively, they can use a friend’s social media account, SMS, or email since bullies nowadays are very tech-savvy and resourceful. There is little that an innocent person can do to put an end to someone who is determined to bully them online.
Cyberbullying is, all things considered, more severe, persistent, and harmful than conventional harassment. It is also among the biggest sources of anxiety in the lives of young adults. Even while victims of bullying frequently try to hide these incidents from their loved ones, there is no escaping the mental and emotional damage the negative act can bring.
It’s interesting to note that other negative consequences of cyberbullying include inadequate self-worth, psychological health problems, increased stress and worry, depression, and aggressive behaviors. Even when the bullying has stopped, cyberbullying can have an emotional and psychological impact that lasts a lifetime.
Impact Of Cyberbullying
- Reduced social interactions, such as avoiding friends and social gatherings
- spending more time alone in their room than usual
- lowering one’s voice often, becoming quieter, or withdrawing
- Having trouble focusing on academic tasks
- declining grades
- losing interest in things once used to enjoy
- deciding to skip school or indicating a desire to do so
- displaying rage when using a computer, tablet, or phone
- concealing the screen of their computer or phone
- Staying away from their phone
- Taking alcohol or drugs
- displaying depressing feelings or thoughts
- causing self-harm
- Discussing suicide often
What Are The Types Of Cyberbullying?
Harassment
You may become the target of harassment if you receive abusive or violent messages from other people over a long period. This type of cyberbullying is extremely dangerous for your mental and emotional health. It might significantly affect your well-being. The messages that are sent can affect your confidence and sense of self-worth and instill dread in your head because they have cruel, malicious, and harmful intent. There’s no break from cyberbullying because of the nonstop use of messages. The cyberbully goes to great lengths to inflict suffering and terror.
Social Exclusion
The intentional leaving of another individual out is known as social exclusion. You may be noticeably left out of the discussion, social interaction, or chats that involve mutual friends or acquaintances, or you may be specifically excluded from a group or gathering that “everyone” is talking about or attending. Here, the intention adds the hostile component that turns simple avoidance into rejection and, consequently, abusive behavior.
Outing or Doxing
The act of disclosing private or sensitive information about somebody without the individual’s permission in order to cause them pain or embarrassment is called an outing, often referred to as doxing. When it comes to cyberbullying, doxing might mean releasing someone’s confidential or private messages on an internet chat room or revealing private images of the individual without their consent.
Trickery
Trickery is just an outing or boxing with a dash of deceit applied. The harasser will make friends with their victim in these circumstances in an attempt to give them a false sense of comfort and security. Once the bully acquires the victims’ confidence and trust, they take advantage of it by willfully disclosing the victim’s secrets and sensitive or personal information to other people, leaving them vulnerable to judgments and negative criticisms.
Cyberstalking
This type of cyberbullying act might involve the cyberbully really posing a risk to your safety or physical well-being. Cyberstalking is also the term used to describe the behavior of adults contacting or private messaging and attempting to meet young individuals or children for sex over the Internet. It’s a particularly hazardous kind of cyberbullying that might have significant consequences if action to stop it isn’t taken right away. It also often leads to offline stalking.
Fraping
Frapping, which is no longer exclusive to Facebook, is the term used to describe the act of a person cyberbullying by taking over a victim’s social media profile, putting up offensive or dehumanizing stuff, and trying to post inappropriate content with the intention of making that individual feel bad about themselves. Frapping is a direct attack performed for an audience that is mediated.
Catfishing or Creating Fake Profiles
When someone wants to bully you online, they can make up a fake profile to conceal their true identity. Usually, it entails making up a social media profile or email address and then sending or uploading offensive or dehumanizing messages to other people you may or may not know. Catfishing is the practice of someone using your online persona—typically videos and photos—to build false social media pages.
Dissing
The act of a bully distributing derogatory or private information about their victim in either publicly or privately messaging threatening statements to harm that person’s reputation or interpersonal connections is known as dissing. Bullying behavior frequently utilizes accurate information, but bullies distort it somewhat to tell an engaging narrative. In these circumstances, the victim and the bully typically have a personal relationship, either as friends or acquaintances.
Trolling
When someone purposefully tries to provoke unfavorable responses by making offensive or offensive remarks through online activities, like in an online social media community or thread, this is known as trolling. When someone engages in trolling with the intention of causing harm or eliciting a reaction, it is considered cyberbullying. Bullies who engage in harassment often have no personal connection to the people they target and are more interested in stirring up trouble in general.