What is Cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying is one of the many forms of bullying. When you cyberbully, you bully or humiliate someone online. This can be done through social media like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and even group chats.
How Does Cyberbullying Affect People, and What Does it Do?
When people are cyberbullied, their feelings can be hurt greatly- just like any other form of bullying. Besides from the fact that the bullying is done online, it’s no different from how people are hurt when they are verbally bullied. For example, rumors can easily spread from place to place and person to person in the same way.
Cyberbullying can also affect one’s mental health. Over time, as the targets are bullied more and more, their self-esteem will start to suffer and they may start having signs of depression. A lot of people don’t fully understand how others are affected by this and they think that everyone should be able to withstand bullying, because it seems easy- but that’s false. When you’ve been bullied over and over again, it becomes hard to ignore.
It’s extremely important to be able to understand what the targets of bullying are really going through and be able to empathize with them. Over time, they will start to feel like they’re not good enough for the world anymore- and could be just one step away from doing something to hurt themselves.
What are the Consequences of Cyberbullying?
Let’s say you’re the bully. If someone who you bullied hurts themselves or others, you would probably feel bad. Why? You were part of the cause of that. You bullied them to the point where they hurt someone because their self-esteem was so low.
Another consequence of cyberbullying is that others can find out that someone was bullied and trace it back to you, which will get you into trouble. Even if you delete or take down something on the internet, there’s always a way to be able to find it. Nothing’s permanently gone on the internet.
Help Stop Cyberbullying!
Even though you may not be able to completely stop cyberbullying, you can still do your best to help! If you ever see someone being bullied, don’t be a bystander- be an upstander! Stand up to that bully or try to help the target instead of ignoring the problem. Who knows? You may not realize it, but they could be going through something really tough- and a little help and support just might be what they need.