Introduction
It goes without saying that under the influence of technological progress, social networks have become an intrinsic part of people’s everyday life. The development of mobile phones and other hand-held devices currently provides instant access to social media from almost any location. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and other platforms allow individuals to share photos, texts, and video instantly, express their opinions, demonstrate their talents, and communicate with relatives and friends from all over the world. In addition, social media has become highly essential for business as companies have received an opportunity to advertise their services or products and communicate with customers in order to improve performance. At the same time, the growing popularity of social media platforms has led to a highly disturbing issue connected with unacceptable behavior – online, or cyber-, bullying. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this phenomenon and evaluate existing and potential solutions.
General Background
In the present day, cyberbullying is such a serious global problem with devastating consequences that it is frequently regarded as a threat to public health (Al-Rahmi et al. 2978). In general, bullying is defined as “aggressive behavior that is repetitive and results in a power differential” (National Institute of Justice par. 3). Thus, cyberbullying is a particular form of harassment that occurs in the mediums of digital communication, including social media platforms, chat rooms, internet forums, and text messages. It is consistent and repeating, taking advantage of the Internet’s anonymity with the main goal to anger, scare, or shame a victim. The most common goals of online bullying are the following:
- Posting humiliating or embarrassing images or private details of a targeted person on his or her account or in public groups (UNICEF par. 3);
- The spread of abusive and malicious rumors;
- Sending threats or hurtful messages privately via messaging platforms;
- Blackmail and intimidation;
- Impersonating a victim and sending abusive messages to other users on his or her behalf;
- Online stalking, trolling, and catfishing.
According to recent statistics, more than 40% of adults in the United States have reported a personal experience of cyberbullying at least once in their lifetime (Johnson par. 1). At the same time, this phenomenon is more noticeable among young people, and in the present day, the rates of cyberbullying victimization among students across the globe are unprecedentedly high. For instance, approximately 70% of Portuguese adolescents and 50% of youths in Singapore mentioned being victims of online bullying (Al-Rahmi et al. 2978). Disturbing rates may be observed in Canada, Sweden, and other countries all over the world as well. In the United States, 36.5% of middle and high school students experienced cyberbullying a minimum of one time (Johnson sec. 1).
Online bullying has a highly negative impact on the mental health of targeted people. In general, it contributes to the occurrence and development of various psychological problems, such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, loneliness, phobias, and social exclusion. Physical symptoms may include various eating disorders, sleep disturbance, and gastrointestinal issues. Moreover, cyberbullying leads to a considerable range of negative feelings and emotions that include humiliation, anger, fear, embarrassment, isolation, and powerlessness. In most cases, children and adolescents have problems with academic progress. The most serious effects of online bullying are self-harm and suicidal thoughts that may lead to unacceptable health risks and even death (Nand et al. 695).
Existing Measures and Potential Solutions
In general, the most obvious approach to cyberbullying from single individuals is to block an abuser. At the same time, victims should have an opportunity to inform social media platforms about the act of cyberbullying. An abusive comment’s screenshot or photo should be taken by a victim as evidence in order to make a complaint. In turn, platforms should be responsible for all users’ safety and develop particular guidelines and community standards in order to investigate reports and provide an adequate response to people who violate their terms and conditions. At the same time, although this approach may stop bullying in relation to a person, it cannot prevent this phenomenon in general.
It goes without saying that all people who have experienced being bullied need emotional support from family members and close friends. However, a considerable number of victims do not ask anyone for help for fear of being misunderstood, rejected, or maligned. That is why public organizations all over the world consider the significance of cyberbullying and its negative impact and create specific anti-bullying websites that offer anonymous psychological support for all individuals who report online bullying and require help. At the same time, there are always ways for improvement, and all projects dedicated to bullying should not only provide help but educate people about possible tactics to avoid or minimize cyberbullying. In addition, they should raise people’s awareness concerning the negative consequences of cyberbullying to stop potential abuse. Nevertheless, similar to the previously mentioned one, this solution is more effective for the management of cyberbullying’s consequences rather than its prevention, as well.
From a personal perspective, such a serious issue as cyberbullying needs a complex approach that requires improvement in multiple spheres. First of all, as previously mentioned, social media should become responsive to all reports dedicated to the acts of online bullying. In addition, they should develop adequate and fair responsive measures to demonstrate their intolerance to cyber-violence and introduce age limits to prevent the use of social media by small children who may be more seriously affected by abusive comments. Another important technique that may help in minimizing bullying is the encouragement of appropriate behavior and positive attitudes. For instance, there are multi-player games that offer their users particular rewards for excellent teamwork, leadership, and friendliness (Hinduja par. 5). Therefore, the same approach may be used for social media platforms.
At the same time, the government’s control of cyberbullying that is currently insufficient should be strengthened as well. Public education should include specific lessons dedicated to the impact of cyberbullying and its prevention and management in the curriculum of education facilities. This measure may be regarded as more efficient in comparison with online private information sources as it targets a considerably larger audience. In general, for the development of appropriate programs of identification and response to cyberbullying, it is essential to consider the following insights:
- The content of messages that constitutes bullying should be appropriately identified.
- Multiple methods should be used for the evaluation of the cases of cyberbullying as a self-report may present a subjective vision of a particular situation.
- In multiple cases, a strong association between online bullying and face-to-face bullying may be found during the investigation, especially in education facilities (National Institute of Justice par. 5).
Finally, criminal justice response to bullying on social media platform should be evaluated and improved as the absence of almost any punishment contributes to the global spread of cyberbullying. At the same time, in terms of legislation, this phenomenon may be identified as incitement to suicide as a person commits it due to humiliating content against himself. That is why there should be an opportunity to institute criminal proceedings against online abusers in the most serious cases of cyberbullying. However, for a fair response, the exact components of cyberbullying should be identified. In other words, a set of standards should be introduced according to which particular behavior will be defined as bullying. In addition, there should be specific systems, frameworks, and algorithms introduced that incorporate “latent or hidden variables with supervised learning to determine potential bullying cases resembling short blogging type texts such as Tweets” (Nand et al. 695). On the basis of these innovations, people should be protected from cyberbullying on social media platforms, and the efficiency of this approach is determined by the fact that the inevitability of punishment will stop a substantial number of potential abusers.
Conclusion
In the present day, cyberbullying has become a highly disturbing issue that affects millions of social media platform users all over the world physically, mentally, and emotionally. It may lead to anxiety, depression, loneliness, phobias, low self-esteem, social exclusion, sleep disturbance, various eating disorders, humiliation, anger, fear, powerlessness, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts. That is why it is highly essential to develop a complex approach to the prevention of cyberbullying and mitigation of its negative consequences. Although the victims of cyberbullying may currently receive support from public organizations, the government and law enforcement agencies should pay particular attention to the development of adequate preventive measures.
Works Cited
Al-Rahmi, Waleed Mugahed, et al. “A Model of Factors Affecting Cyber Bullying Behaviors Among University Students.” IEEE, vol. 7, 2019, pp. 2978-2985.
Hinduja, Sameer. “How Social Media Companies Should Combat Online Abuse.” Cyberbullying Research Center, Web.
Johnson, Joseph. “Cyber Bullying – Statistics & Facts.” Statista, 2021, Web.
Nand, Parma, et al. ““How Bullying is this Message?”: A Psychometric Thermometer for Bullying.” Proceedings of COLING 2016, the 26th International Conference on Computational Linguistics: Technical Paper, 2016, pp. 695-706.
National Institute of Justice. “Teen Cyberbullying Content Assessed in the Context of Social Networks.” NIJ, 2020, Web.
UNICEF. “Cyberbullying: What Is It and How to Stop It.” unicef, 2021. Web.