Justice Is All We Want #missiondesi

Cyberbullying

Technology, as we know, is a double-edged sword, where the users are continuously balancing between the risks and opportunities it offers. It is no longer just a cliché: we really are all connected, 24/7, no matter where in the world, we are mere one click away from our families, co-workers, classmates, idols, mentors, neighbors, and even strangers. On one side, the Internet has made the world a much smaller place full of opportunities to thrive for people with minimal resources along with bringing awareness to important sociopolitical movements and acting as a platform for fundraising for many noble causes; on the other side, it has exposed vulnerable people to a deep dark world of web and bullying while sitting safely in the vicinity of their homes.

A popular report by a US market research company in 2015[1] suggests that, at the time, there were more mobile devices on the planet than people –8.6 billion devices versus 7.3 billion people. And by the end of 2018, the number of mobile devices in world will exceed 12 billion – an average of nearly 2 devices per user. This rapid rise of electronic-based communication during the past decade has dramatically changed the social interactions, especially among teenagers. Adolescents are moving from using the Internet as an “extra” in everyday communication to using it as the “primary” mode of communication. This shift from face-to-face communication to online communication has created many unique and potentially harmful dynamics for social relationships – one such dynamic has recently been explored in the literature as cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying is defined by Smith et al. as an “aggressive, intentional act carried out by a group or individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time against a victim who cannot easily defend himself or herself.”[2] Most definitions of bullying rely upon three criteria; intent to harm, imbalance of power, and repetition of the act. Cyberbullying also can happen accidentally. The impersonal nature of text messages, instant messages, and e-mails makes it very hard to detect the sender's tone – one person's joke could be another's hurtful insult. However, a repeated pattern is rarely accidental. In case of cyberbullying, this becomes relatively easy, where the power of one click is immense and increases the audience by thousands, thus increasing the humiliation and impact of bullying exponentially. The scope of cyberbullying is vast, in terms of means as well as content. It includes bullying through text messages, phone calls, e-mails, instant messengers, social media platforms, or in chat rooms. It varies from posting hurtful words, derogatory comments, posting fake information on public forums or blogs, hacking accounts for personal vendetta to rape or death threats. It can be as ruinous as revenge porn, which is posting sexually explicit images or videos of a person on the Internet, typically by a former sexual partner, without the consent of the subject and in order to cause them distress or embarrassment. The impact of such acts can be catastrophic, especially for young adults, who feel so embarrassed and humiliated that they cannot imagine surviving the next morning, and end up taking extreme steps which include harm to self and occasionally, others. It deeply reflects the real-world problems arising out of the virtual cyberspace. No longer limited to schoolyards or street corners, it has now moved to WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, etc., where online polls are conducted to bodyshame the victim and groups are made to spread false rumours or share morphed pictures and videos, to a rather vast audience with the power of the Internet, which would not have been so easily possible in the physical world otherwise. Cyberbullying also differs from traditional bullying in offering potential anonymity to the bully and difficulty in identifying the victim. This combined with the obvious lack of monitoring and regulation in cyberspace makes the issue more intricate and strenuous to address.

On the basis of their online behavior, people can be categorized as cyber victim, cyber bully, and cyber victim/bully. The possible adverse effects of cyberbullying can be physical, psychological, or in academic performance, and these are most pronounced for the cyber bully/victim category.[3] Higher rates of depression and anxiety are noted among cyber victims along with refusal to school and declining academic performance. These students are also found to be more prone to report headache, stomach ache, bed wetting, and various other psychosomatic complaints. The type of cyberbullying tends to differ among both genders; girls are more likely to post mean comments online, while boys are more likely to post hurtful pictures or videos online.[4] As postulated by the USA-based Cyberbullying Research Centre, there are many reasons as to why dysphoric outcomes of cyberbullying are different and potentially more than traditional bullying. For example, the computer-based messages are more permanent as compared to the verbal statements as they are preserved in websites, internet archives, search engine caches, and user devices; it is easier to make hurtful, embarrassing, or threatening statements on the Internet because of comparative difficulty in detecting and identifying the misbehavior and offending party, proving or verifying the act of wrongdoing, and imposing a meaningful sanction; victimization through the Internet is omnipresent beyond the school, playground, or neighborhood due to the ubiquity of computers and cell phones and the “always-connected” lives that adolescents in todays’ world lead; the youth is increasingly embracing new mediums and devices of communication, and thus the number of potential victims and offenders is rapidly growing.[5] The repercussions of virtual and seemingly not real harassment are very evidently seen in the real world, in our schools, and even in our homes, the place where the child is supposed to feel the most safe.