Blog – Latest stories tagged 'cyberbullying'

Despite the growing influence of the internet in our daily lives it comes as a surprise that self harm now occurs through the use of social media according to recent findings. With cyber bullying being a worrying precursor to young people’s distress and even suicide, there has been an interesting twist where young people are now self cyber bullying as a method of self harm.

Teenagers in particular have been known to create anonymous accounts on social media sites and post self degrading messages to their own page as a means of self harming. Ellie 17 (not her real name) is an example of a teenager who took such actions. “The posts would say things like I was ugly, I was useless, I wasn't loved… all the stuff in my head. If I saw it in black and white coming from 'other people' I knew it must be true” said Ellie. Another form of self cyber bullying also included posting questions on sites to provoke a reaction and in turn welcome cruel answers from other users. Questions like “do you think I’m attractive?” resulted in the expected abuse! Self cyber bullying has also been seen as a masked cry for help according to MARC (Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Centre) where people post abuse in order to draw attention from adults and friends on the site to enlist support and perhaps sympathy. Statistics from MARC state that 23% of students self cyber bullied once a month, 28% one or two times a year and 49% infrequently exhibited this behaviour.

One of the most recent cases of cyber bullying occurred when 14 year old Hannah Smith from Leicestershire caused death by suicide after receiving a barrage of abuse on the question and answer site ask.fm, which allows users to post questions and answers anonymously. Users would taunt Smith about her weight, the death of her uncle and urged her to harm herself. The power of anonymity on such sites can be argued to escalate the problem of cyber bullying where users have the power to post disturbing messages whilst disguising their identity.

However new findings of the tragic case of Smith have shown worrying links to the emergence of self cyber bullying. It has been reported that 98% of the harmful messages were allegedly posted by Smith herself and only four of the abusive messages came from other IP addresses. We cannot make assumptions at this point about the reality of the situation as there are still many unknown details. That said, if this is a fact then what does this say about the power of self cyber bullying? What is driving so many young people to self harm in this way?

The power of the internet and social media is not new but is still hard for many to grasp the insidious manner in which it creeps into people’s lives with the possibility of anonymity, quick spread of information and overriding influence in young people’s lives (as well as adults too). The art of expressing negative feelings in unique ways is nothing new as proposed by freelance writer Nina Funnell. ‘Teens have always had a propensity to document their negative self-talk and self-loathing in one form or another, often in journals, angst-ridden poetry and other forms of art.’ As such she argues that teenagers have always shared their pain to elicit an emotional response such as sympathy or empathy, from the public. The key difference is that the actions now take place online, and, to an extent, where help may not be as forthcoming. Perhaps rather than blaming the internet we must educate more children, teenagers and parents on the pros and cons of the internet and work with people to engender more self regulation and to manage their self hatred in healthier and safer ways. And with the rising problem of self cyber bullying this must be tackled soon, as ‘sometimes the cruellest things a teen will ever hear are the comments they say to themselves’ as emphasised by Funnell.

Here at E-safety Support we are delighted to support the Safer Internet Day (SID), organised in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre.

The theme for Safer Internet Day 2014 is ‘Let’s create a better internet together’. This theme covers the responsibility that all users have in making the internet a better place. Whether children and young people, parents and carers, educators or social care workers, or indeed industry, decision makers or politicians, everyone has a role to play.

In championing a better internet, the theme recognises the balance between encouraging users to embrace and empowering them to make the most of the positive opportunities offered online, while responding to, dealing with and moving past the negative online.

The internet is such a part of everyday life that it is easy to forget how relatively new the environment is. Consequently it is also easy to be complacent about internet safety; surely our ‘digital native’ youth know what they are doing? But in reality there is an internet knowledge gap and indeed internet safety knowledge gap between the generations. So it is vital that our educators as well as their students are aware of the dangers the enable them to safely benefit from the positives.

It is also important to remember that we as users are contributing to the online environment too, so we also ensure that when we do interact online (as we would in the offline world), that we do so as responsible citizens. Education about cyber antics which can begin innocently but lead onto more serious bullying situations is key.
There are ways in which all users can contribute:

Children and young people can help to create a better internet by being kind and respectful to others online and seeking positive and safe opportunities to create, engage and share online.

Parents and carers can help to create a better internet by maintaining an open and honest dialogue with their children about their online lives, supporting them with their online activity (as appropriate to their age), particularly any concerns and issues, and seeking out positive opportunities to share with their children online. They can help to respond to the negative by modelling positive online behaviours themselves, and by also reporting any inappropriate or illegal content they find.

Educators and social care workers can help to empower children and young people to embrace the positive by equipping them with the digital literacy skills they require for today’s world, and giving them opportunities to use – and create – positive content online. They can help to respond to the negative by supporting youngsters if they encounter problems online, and by giving them the confidence and skills to seek help from others.

Safer Internet Day Resources
E-safety Support has many resources which can help teach, learn and practice online safety for the whole school community, including our Safer Internet Day 2014 Assemblies for primary schools and secondary schools, which are available to download by joining as a E-safety Support Free Member (Premium and Premium Plus members can also download the assemblies from their E-safety Support Dashboard).

There has been much said in the news recently about the tragic consequences of the anonymous comment site Ask.fm – a high profile site popular with teenagers. But what is it about this sort of site that attracts people into making vicious comments about their ‘friends’, peers and indeed colleagues - we must remember that this domain is not exclusively that of today’s youth but also involves adults too.

To try to understand the psychology of this phenomenon, I took a look at another of these sites, which boasts on the home page that the website is “100% anonymous”. I don’t need to register to explore further, just click a button to claim I am over 18. So now I’m in.

I’m now presented with a selection of four recent posts, three of which appear to be about school pupils which is interesting given the age ‘restriction’ and two of the four include some colourful language describing the person in question - well that’s encouraging, now I know what’s expected of me.

So I click the button to post my own ‘gossip’. I’m asked for my email address (mickey.mouse@disney.com it is then) and then I’m free to make up my own gossip (as suggested by the site itself).

Now it gets a bit more serious, I have to tick a box to say that my comment is not about someone under 18 – well I have already seen that that’s been done before, so tick. Next, that it isn’t threatening, pornographic, racist or otherwise objectionable – seen that too, so tick again. Finally that it doesn’t contain private information – OK, I promise.

And that’s it. My disparaging remarks about Pluto and Minnie are there for them and the world to see. Regardless of whether the comments are true or not, they are public and I can’t take them back. But that’s OK surely, because it was anonymous so it’s not really hurting anyone – particularly me right? There will be no repercussions for me and I can always deny it if questioned. It was all too easy.

Perhaps then, it’s the ease and speed at which a comment can be made public that contributes to the impact of this sort of site. Making a spur of the moment comment after a classroom spat (or staffroom spat for that matter), could be regretted moments later, but the damage is already done and can easliy lead to cyber bullying.

It seems that there is no protection given to those on the receiving end. Yes the site has a means of user-moderation, but surely by the time the comment is live and has been seen by just about anyone who is interested, it's too late?

If you have any thoughts on this type of site, we would love to hear from you. Please use the comments section below – we do only ask for your name and comment, but we do moderate all comments before allowing them to be published on the site.