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Technology and its effects on human psychology

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Cyber-bullying and its effects on human psychology

Living in the twenty first century, one cannot help but notice the part that mobiles, computers and other such equipment play in our daily lives. From the moment we wake up, the use of mobile phone becomes kind of necessary or in many cases, second nature. The excessive use of mobiles and social networking sites has its effects on human psychology. This paper aims to discuss most of the problems that are faced by this very generation from a psychological perspective. Some proposals will also be made for combating these problems from a mental health as well as legal perspective. Different crimes relating to the digital world will also be discussed and the remedies regarding the increasing trend of cyber-bullying and the consequent remedies will also be detailed.

From the early advent of communication technology, it became very clear that in the coming years, the channels of communication were definitely going to evolve. One could not, however, think that it would have such an effect on human psychology. Issues of identity crisis, sadness and overall mental health have definitely worsened with the initiation of such vast communication platforms. The general sense of competition has affected the human mind both from a biological as well as a psychological point of view. The gradual increase of social media sites has resulted in a variety of problems including trends of cyber-bullying which need to be addressed.

Cyber-bullying, in simple terms, is the act of bullying using social networks as the main medium. Acts of body-shaming constitute the majority of cases of cyber-bullying. Psychologists define cyber bullying as acts of intense personal harassment that originates from pictures, videos or comments posted on online social platforms with the intent of embarrassing others ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"90OGwTzO","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Anderson et al., 2014)","plainCitation":"(Anderson et al., 2014)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":297,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/DTmO0ro3/items/63D66R5B"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/DTmO0ro3/items/63D66R5B"],"itemData":{"id":297,"type":"article-journal","abstract":"Weight-based cyberbullying is prevalent among youth and adolescents and can have lasting negative psychological effects on the victims. One way to combat these negative effects is through modeling dissenting behavior. When a bystander challenges the bully or supports the victim, this models dissenting behavior. In this study, 181 participants were exposed to message manipulations posted on a Facebook page aimed at testing the conformity effect, the dissenter effect, and the bystander effect in response to enactment of weight-based bullying. Facebook is a common social media site where cyberbullying is reported. Results indicate that in the dissenting condition, participants’ comments were significantly more positive or supporting for the victim, as compared to other conditions. This effect was more pronounced for men than for women. In addition, in the dissenting condition, men were less likely to consider the victim unhealthy than women and men in other conditions. These results support the effectiveness of efforts to model dissenting behavior in the face of bullies and extend them to online contexts. Implications are discussed.","container-title":"Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking","DOI":"10.1089/cyber.2013.0370","ISSN":"2152-2715, 2152-2723","issue":"5","journalAbbreviation":"Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking","language":"en","page":"281-286","source":"DOI.org (Crossref)","title":"Combating Weight-Based Cyberbullying on Facebook with the Dissenter Effect","volume":"17","author":[{"family":"Anderson","given":"Jenn"},{"family":"Bresnahan","given":"Mary"},{"family":"Musatics","given":"Catherine"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2014",5]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Anderson et al., 2014). One of the most common tactics used for cyber-bullying is to hit on the social insecurities of the victims. Showing that someone is not very trendy or cool can present a very big social dilemma as it can increase trends of isolation. The collective imagination of people not wanting to be with people who are considered uncool can ruin someone’s life. This very thing is thus considered a crime and is legislated against in many countries.

Another thing that needs to be understood is the fact that people of all ages get affected by cyber-bullying. Most of the time, it is understood that us as humans have moved on from these clichés of differentiating people and judging them based on their appearance but reality suggests otherwise. Most cases of cyber-bullying, both in the developed as well as the under-developed world suggest that weight does play a big part for someone to be accepted as part of the mainstream in a society. Starting from schools, the marginalization continues to make them victims of such behavior and turns them into people who have very low self-esteem and also patients of depression and anxiety. Cyber-bullying is very different from traditional bullying and in many cases, much more dangerous. Following are some of the reasons why cyber-bullying is considered as much more dangerous than traditional old school bullying.

Increased anonymity and decreased censorship results in an increase of ease in cyber-bullying.

The effects of cyber-bullying can be more ever-lasting as the pervasiveness of social media platforms is far greater than old school bullying.

Online videos and comments are often permanently posted and can be viewed by colleagues at a later stage and can result in series of lifetime events of cyber-bullying.

Moving on to one of the most common types of cyber-bullying and that is weight-based cyberbullying. A general trend is that as the body-mass index increases, the chance of a person being cyber-bullied also increases. Different pieces of statistics are available on a lot of different platforms but most of them suggest that most cases of cyber-bullying exist in overweight adolescents. About 61% of the reported cases have claimed receiving mean and embarrassing comments online. 59% have received mean texts, emails or instant messages. These comments have a very high impact both in cyberspace as well as real life because such contents can have prominent visibility and relevance in cyber-space.

Public situations where people try to use their own subjective reasoning to define a norm and try to portray as if, it is the only way to live, is one of the most common strategies to make people bad about themselves. These situations can be tackled in a number of ways and these techniques should be taught in primary academic institutions to combat this culture of body-shaming. One of them is dissent. If you witness bullying or are a victim of it, you should always show dissent. It is one of the difficult things as it risks social disapproval as well as intimidates your opponent, but this technique is seen as the most effective. It is generally seen that for victims of bullying, one or more dissenting comments from bystanders can cause a dissenter effect which can cause one or more people coming out and defending the victim. The feeling of being in control, once lost, can be a very big concern for the bully who is trying to make the show as a display of his or her bravado.

Works Cited:

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, J., Bresnahan, M., & Musatics, C. (2014). Combating Weight-Based Cyberbullying on Facebook with the Dissenter Effect. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 17(5), 281–286. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2013.0370