Table of Contents
What is cyberbullying?
It’s the virtual way to practice Bullying. It is a modality that has been worrying specialists, parents and educators worldwide, due to its multiplier effect on the suffering of victims.
In their practice, they use modern Internet tools and other information and communication technologies, mobile or fixed, to mistreat, humiliate and embarrassing. It is a perverse form of attack that goes far beyond the walls of the school, gaining incalculable dimensions.
What are the main forms of aggression?
In the case of cyberbullying, aggressions occur in different ways, such as through emails, text messages, Blogs, Fotoblogs, Orkut, and MSN, in which the author insults, anonymously, spread rumors, and cruel rumors about colleagues. and their families, even about school professionals.
Instant messages are triggered, via the Internet or cell phone, where the author impersonates another, adopting similar nicknames, to say unpleasant things or to spread intrigue and gossip.
Blogs are created to bully and Orkut is used to exclude and expose colleagues in a vexatious way.
Photographs are taken, with or without the consent of the victims, being altered, through embarrassing montages, including insults, jokes, sexist or racist comments. These images are often posted on websites, posted on newsgroups and even on service networks, or disseminated through printed materials scattered in hallways, bathrooms, or circulated among students, without the victims’ knowledge.
His name and image are already on the world wide web when he finds out, making it very difficult to get out of the situation unscathed.
There are cases in which the victim has his e-mail invaded by the aggressor, who, pretending to be him, sends messages with defamatory content, with very serious consequences for the victim and his family.
Participation in forums and guest books are also strategies used by practitioners, leaving negative messages on the subject in question or giving an inconvenient opinion.
Voting is carried out through websites, to choose or elect colleagues with stereotyped characteristics.
What are the consequences of these forms of aggression for children and adolescents?
Legally the consequences are the responsibility of the aggressors and in certain cases also of their parents and responsible for the damages caused to the victim. It is good to say that depending on the case, the aggressor is also subject to criminal liability for the consequences of his acts.
In relation to the victims, in addition to the moral and emotional damage suffered, there is also the risk that their images, once publicized on the world wide web, will attract unscrupulous and malicious people from the real world, who want to use them for nefarious purposes, such as pedophilia and pornography.
Victims feel fear, anger and shame at being treacherously assaulted, embarrassed and humiliated.
They live in a climate of emotional instability, distrust and animosity in school life, as everyone around them becomes suspicious. They usually feel low self-esteem, a drop in school performance, diversified psychosomatic symptoms and stress. In chronic cases, it stimulates the emergence of diseases and psychological disorders.
Others cannot resist the embarrassment and change schools. In short, the consequences are the same as those of other forms of Bullying victimization, however, the feeling of powerlessness is greater, since the perpetrator(s) is real and hides in the virtual world to strike his blows and invade your privacy.
Main differences between bullying and cyberbullying.
One of the main differences between bullying in person and that practiced by electronic means is that in the former there is the identification of the aggressor, that is, the victim knows who directly or indirectly caused the aggressions. In the virtual world, the aggressor hides in the false idea of anonymity, creating false names, nicknames and impersonating other people.
This anonymity issue brings a second difference between face-to-face and virtual bullying. In physical bullying, usually the aggressor is stronger – mentally or physically – than the victim, and in the electronic world such a conclusion does not exist, since anyone can commit acts of aggression online.
As a third difference, we mention that in the case of cyberbullying, the aggressor’s actions take place through electronic means, which means that he does not immediately tangibly witness the results of his actions on the victim.
In this way, the aggressor does not immediately see the harm he has caused, that is, the consequences of his actions, which minimizes any possible feelings of regret, remorse or empathy towards the victim that he might feel as a result of this observation. This reality thus creates a situation where people can do and say things on the Internet that they would be much less likely to say or do in person.
An international campaign against cyberbullying makes use of exactly this idea, in the sense that “if you wouldn’t speak in person, why speak online”. Watch the campaign video below:
And last, but not least, the big difference between traditional bullying and cyberbullying is the potentiating effect of the electronic medium, that is, the information published online is available to the whole world, and it is not possible to have any kind of absolute control over it. .
While the home is usually a refuge where the victim of bullying is generally safe from the aggressor’s actions, this is not the case with cyberbullying, where even at home the victim is not safe from aggression, whether by opening an email, Instant Messaging, when receiving an SMS, when consulting a forum or a simple page on electronic social networking sites.
Such conclusions demonstrate how harmful and serious cyberbullying is.
How to defend and avoid such attitudes?
Firstly, it is worth highlighting the importance of prevention, which is a work that must be done both by schools and educational institutions and especially by parents, who must guide their children in order to make them aware and educate them about the ethical, correct and responsible for new technologies and media. It is important that the limits of the use of technology are detailed, as well as the consequences of the conduct practiced by the electronic medium.
At this point, the big problem is that the parents themselves do not always know how to guide their children, since they are unaware of technological innovations like parental intelligence and their multiple possibilities of use. In this way, it is important that parents and educators seek specialized help so that they can properly educate their children and students.
On the other hand, it is worth noting that if any situation of abuse or aggression is found, parents and the victims themselves must report such a problem and seek specialized assistance. The fact that most people do not take any action to repress this type of situation ends up increasing impunity for aggressors, also directly increasing the number of cases.
