Understanding Cyberbullying
Most teens and young adults spend a significant chunk of daily life online. We learn, play games, shop, express ourselves, and keep in touch with our friends and family through our screens. The internet helps us connect to others in a lot of good ways, but an unfortunate byproduct of being so connected digitally is the growing trend of cyberbullying — a pattern of intentionally aggressive behavior that aims to harm or humiliate others online.
Cyberbullying may not seem like a big deal because it’s not in the “real” world. But it can have real and lasting effects on our mental health and our sense of safety. It’s important to understand how to spot bullying behavior online and understand what you can do to stop cyberbullying.
What Is Cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying is a form of bullying that takes place through digital communication as opposed to in person. A cyberbully can use a phone, computer, or other digital device to share content that’s meant to shame or embarrass another person through social media sites, text messages, emails, online forums, gaming platforms, and other digital spaces.
Cyberbullying should be taken seriously, because it can have negative effects on mental health and is linked to anxiety, depression, nonsuicidal self-injury, suicidal thoughts, and suicide attempts.
Examples of cyberbullying include:
- Deliberately excluding someone from group chats or private stories and then posting about them in those channels
- Faking friendships on apps and then using information to humiliate the person “befriended”
- Posting humiliating photos on social media
- Spamming mean comments on social media posts or in gaming chats
- Sending unwanted explicit messages or images to someone
- Posting rumors about someone on social media
- Calling someone names or threatening to hurt someone physically over digital platforms
- Pretending to be someone else online and acting as that person on online forums or social media sites
- Asking for personal details about someone or keeping tabs on them digitally, such as constantly asking them where they are, what they’re doing, and who they are with
- Creating mean webpages or social media profiles about peers
If you are experiencing cyberbullying, confide in someone you trust. There are ways you can protect yourself by blocking, flagging, or reporting messages or accounts. Repeated bullying has a number of negative mental health impacts, so doing something to stop it is really important for your well-being. Read more about how to cope with cyberbullying.
If you are using any of those bullying tactics against another person, it’s important to understand what is causing you to act out in those ways. Working with a mental health professional, such as a school counselor or a professional in the community, can help you get to the root issues that cause you to bully others.
Who Is At Risk of Being Cyberbullied?
If you’ve experienced cyberbullying, you’re not alone: Nearly half of teens have been bullied online, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. Research shows, however, that there are some groups that tend to be targeted more than others for cyberbullying:
- Girls are more likely than boys to be victims of cyberbullying, especially when it comes to spreading false rumors about them. Boys are also frequently targeted, though, and they are almost as likely as girls to receive explicit images they didn’t ask for or have images of themselves shared without their consent.
- LGBTQIA+ high school students are almost twice as likely as their peers to be electronically bullied.
- Black and Latine teens are more likely to say that online harassment and bullying are a major problem for people their age.
- When asked about characteristics they felt were factors in their being targeted, 15% of teens said their physical appearance, 10% said their gender, 9% said their race, 5% said their sexual orientation, and 5% said their political views.
- Influencers and people with large followings on social media can also be targets for online harassment and bullying, particularly on social media sites where the pressure to appear perfect can sometimes feel overwhelming.
How to Recognize Cyberbullying
Texting, posting on social media, and exchanging digital messages is a very common way for friends and loved ones to stay connected. But sometimes relationships via text or on social media can cause stress. Look out for these behaviors in yourself or your friends, because they may be signs of cyberbullying:
- Feeling upset about the messages received through a phone or computer
- A noticeable increase or decrease in technology use because interacting with people online is causing stress or anxiety
- Hiding the screen from others due to being embarrassed about or ashamed of messages received
- Avoiding social situations in real life because of something upsetting that happened online
- Withdrawing from friends and family or losing interest in activities outside social media
If you notice signs of cyberbullying toward yourself or one of your friends, it’s important to tell a trusted adult what’s happening.
How to Intervene: Be a Cyber-Upstander
Cyberbullying can take place in a private forum, such as direct messages, but there are more witnesses when it happens on an online public forum, such as social media posts or comments. You’d think that would mean more people would stand up against cyberbullying, but often the opposite happens. It’s called the bystander effect: when a single person is less likely to intervene when lots of other bystanders are present, because they assume someone else will intervene instead.
Instead of being a bystander, you can be an upstander: someone who notices when something is not right and does something about it. Here are some ways you can be a cyber-upstander for others:
- Encourage the victim to seek help from someone they trust.
- Show the victim how to use teen safety features on social media platforms that offer them.
- Tell someone in authority, such as a teacher, parent, coach, or other trusted adult, about what you’re observing online or via social media.
- Report what you are observing to the security team of the site where the bullying is happening.
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