The New Age Cyber- Bullying

“Not all forms of abuse leave bruises.” -Danielle Steel

No one would desire to be bullied. With the advent of social media, it has become evident that bullying has evolved from physical bruises to emotional scars. The ideology remains the same, the tactics, a little different. This leads us to the concept of ‘cyberbullying’.

Though cyberbullying may seem less intense than regular bullying, it’s not quite the case. It markedly targets a person’s insecurities, making emotional scars much more prominent than a swirly or a punch.

Take the case of Ashlynn Conner. A 10-year-old girl in Illinois was bullied to such an extent in school that she begged her mother to home-school her. Cyberbullying found its way through and Ashlynn was soon a victim of it. She was called ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ by her school friends which later turned into derogatory remarks. When she cut her hair short, she was trolled all over social media. The harsh name-calling was too much for her. Ashlynn felt the easiest way out of this was to take her life, which she did. Ashlynn’s sister found her hanging in her closet. Imagine someone calling you ‘ugly’, ‘stupid’, ‘fat’ online, post embarrassing photos of you. It gets to a point where it could seriously deteriorate your mental health.

It does not stop there. In a 2020 survey conducted in India titled ‘Online Study and Internet Addiction’, 22.4% of the adolescent respondents who used the internet for longer than 3 hours of a day were susceptible to cyberbullying. Up to 28% of the adolescent respondents who used the internet for more than 4 hours a day were victims of cyberbullying.

Why is cyberbullying more intense than regular bullying?

You may have this question in mind, isn’t bullying the same regardless of whether it is physical or online? No, not exactly.

In the case of cyberbullying, there is the distinct factor of anonymity. The internet offers the bully an extra invisible cloak of anonymity wherein a person can disguise his or her identity and say things they would not probably say in person. By creating various social media accounts under pseudo names, one person has the temerity to bully a single person disguised under many. This creates a false impression that the victim is bullied by many people. There are not many repercussions, right? I mean, no one can find you.

The second factor is the fear that it could go viral. With the power social media has, it doesn’t take long until half the world knows what you are up to. Your photos, chats, phone number can be easily extracted with just a few clicks. When someone is cyberbullied, it is often spread around with the petty aim of humiliating the victim. The weaknesses of a victim are often magnified and spread across social media which in turn reach the victim itself.

The final factor is that there is less remorse online. Cyberbullying victims are less likely to report their cases because they fear they would receive punishments like having their phones taken away or their privacy invaded. Furthermore, cyberbullies may feel less guilty for what they do because most of the time the victim is completely random. With the fake profile they set up, they don’t care how their words actually strike the victim.

But yes, bullying is bullying, be it physically or in the online world. The victims experience depression, loneliness, and a loss of interest in everything.

Bullying, in general, can have physical and psychological ramifications on the victim. Cyberbullying, however, is disturbing which involves emotional effects too. I referred to physical bullying leading to bruises but cyberbullying leads to emotional scars. As we talked about in the above section, cyberbullying can occur at any time, place and be perpetrated by anonymous people making it unabated and cruel.

For many, life often feels meaningless, losing interests in activities they once enjoyed. In worst-case scenarios, depression and thoughts of suicide can set in.

Cyberbullying victims succumb to depression as well as anxiety which erodes self-confidence. This steals their feelings of happiness and contentment.

Cyberbullying zeroes in on what makes the victim feel most vulnerable. We all have our insecurities, but we try not to think about them, but for the victims, they are constantly reminded about them and it seems like the only thing they carry is their insecurity.

Even when that is not the case, cyberbullying can have an impact on self-esteem. Targets of bullying may begin to feel intense dissatisfaction with who they are. As a result, they can begin to doubt their worth and value.

Cyberbullying victims may often feel distressed or embarrassed. They tend to blame themselves for being bullied because of their insecurities.

When cyberbullying occurs, victims feel humiliated seeing the damaging posts, messages being shared with multitudes.

Cyberbullying causes victims to be ostracized and isolated. Victims feel that they are not good enough to be around anyone. This would be painful for adolescent victims because friends are crucial at this age.

Finally, cyberbullying victims are prone to anger. In rare cases, the victimized try and plot revenge and engage in retaliation. This is quite dangerous because it keeps them locked in a never-ending bully-victim cycle.

Even though cyberbullying occurs online, stress can manifest physically with eating disorders, gastrointestinal issues, insomnia etc.

Victims starve themselves or binge eat because they feel the eating pattern is the only thing that is under their control. This morphs into eating disorders especially if the bullying concerns the weight factor.

What can we do to help them?

It seems extremely difficult to control messages, photos, and videos from circulating but it is not entirely impossible. It’s better to be a little prudent in broadcasting all and sundry information to the whole world.

Furthermore, victims need to know that by confiding in an adult or a trusted one, they are doing the right thing.

We need to make sure, to validate their feelings by agreeing to the fact that no one has the right to bully them, and it is not their fault.

Advice the victims not to retaliate. It may be better not to respond to the bully at all. By responding, the victim falls into the hands of the cyberbully. But if the victim ignores the pleas for attention, the antagonizing might stop.

The pen is mightier than the sword, but not everyone understands it. In this case, it is more like the keyboard being mightier than a hit, but you get it right? Bullying only works on the premise that the victim cannot share it with their peers or parents. If that cycle can be broken by making the victims share their problems with a trusted one, we would see less of this menace.