Almost all people in the whole world today use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp and more. They either use said platforms for communication with families and friends, for sharing pictures, ideas and promoting. And now it seems they have become some sense of entertainment and diversion from the deluge of anxiety and stress because of the pandemic and what it has brought upon each individual these days. Social media has impacted people’s lives so much through the years and especially during this pandemic. Although it has a few positive effects to some people like, they are able to communicate with family, relatives and friends, have vital social connections, find new friends, have an outlet for self-expression or emotional support, introduce your own product or find products to buy and discover and learn new and important and real information that can help them, still, several studies show that there is a big connection of the increase in stress, anxiety, loneliness, self-harm and depression of most people to social media platforms. But the most evident form of negative effect especially for most young people like me is the CYBERBULLYING.
Cyberbullying is a form of bullying through phone, tablet, laptop or any digital devices that use different social media platforms like Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Viber, online gaming apps and many more. The bullying is done either via text messages, public posts, shout outs and sharing private information about someone in public, with the purpose of shaming, degrading, humiliation, with mostly false pretenses just to embarrass the one being bullied. Sometimes it even goes beyond bullying alone and becomes unlawful acts. These bullying incidents are mostly persistent in nature. Oftentimes a repeated harassment to the victim and marks a continuing effect in nature due to the publicized posts that are often permanent that ruins the victim’s reputation unless the victim requests for a law enforcement’s help for the posts to be taken down and for the bully to be punished. The sad fact is, most of the time, parents, teachers and authorities have no knowledge of said bullying for the reason that the person or child being bullied might be feeling embarrassed to discuss the incident or that the person or child is being scared by the bully and being told that she/he would be harmed if she/he tells anyone.
According to Richard Webster, a Hartford County Examiner on his interview with www.bullyingstatistics.org, about 25% of teens and adolescents have been bullied worldwide for the past years since the introduction of social media. But since the pandemic has started, it has increased tremendously, probably because of the lockdowns and people have more time than ever on their computers and phones. According to www.educationcorner.com, 90% of grades 4–8, 28% of grades 6–12, 20% of graded 9–12, have experience either bullying or harassment. And half of those mostly cyberbullying. Hundreds of thousands of students develop fear of going to school because of these bullying incidents and even 10% of students drop out of school. Almost only 36% have the courage to report bullying and 64% who are bullied do not report the incident. In the Philippines, about 92.4 thousand victims of cyberbullying in NCR and CARAGA regions alone have been reported in 2019. (www.stastica.com) Most of the victims of cyberbullying are aged 13–17. (www.unicef.org) Most of the people who experience bullying suffer deep mental, psychological, emotional, social, academic issues and professional issues. Most often the results would be depression, anxiety, paranoia, loneliness, sadness, loss of appetite, loss of interest, changes in sleep pattern, mood swings and even results into consumption of alcohol or prohibited drugs.
Me and my twin sister have been victims of bullying and harassment when we were in grade 1–6. Some were girls and mostly boys. The bullying started from words to actions, calling us different names. The bullying started because of our speech defect (stuttering caused by our years of seizure/epilepsy) until they elevated into physical harassment from grade 4–6 which were sometimes sexual in nature. When we told our parents, they reported them to the principal but all the school did was “dialogue with the parents” which did not resolve anything and the bullying only escalated into cyberbullying. When we were in grade 5–6, some of them would stalk us on our social media accounts and message us with harassing words. One of them even stalked us in our home and we could see them playing with our neighbors in our street. Luckily, our Mom has our social media accounts on her phone, so she was the one who answered the messages and then she reported the incidents including the screen shots of the messages to DepEd and DepEd and then we moved to another place. DepEd has asked the school for the expulsion of the 2 who harassed us the most and the other 1 was only given disciplinary action of psychiatric treatment everyway since he was graduating that time and it the mother apologized to us and asked if they could at least let the boy finish elementary. Since then, our parents and aunt who is supporting us in our schooling, decided to transfer us to homeschooling, which is why we started studying at CFA since grade 7. It is a great thing that we have very supportive parents and hands on mother that we were able to get through it. You see, parental support is very important in these kinds of incidents. Other relatives and teachers should also be supportive if parents are not able to. Because cyberbullying could not be resolved in just being silent or scared and a person being bullied could not fight it alone.
To be able to face any digital issues smartly, start now and start it from you and take note of the following:
· Always remember that all apps are seen publicly. So once you post anything about yourself there, it would be seen by everyone around the world. So be cautious.
· Set all your account into private. Since all social media apps are seen publicly, you also have the option to set them into private that which only your family and circle of friends and those you allow to follow you would be able to see your posts.
· Do not share your location on social media so as to avoid any stalkers or predators specially for young people.
· Do not accept friend requests from strangers even if they are friends of your friends or even if they say they are your relatives. As long as you don’t know them personally or not close to you, DO NOT ADD.
· Do not over-share all your personal information online. If the app asks for them, opt to hide them from public. Do not share too personal or private and even scandalous images. This will surely haunt you for life. Not only does predators would see them but also the bullies and phishing bandits who could steal your photos. Some people tend to fret on social media or sometimes what the young people would call “drunk-share”, where-in they navigate their social media while drunk and post embarrassing things about them or other people. Some also post too personal matters that not even their parents know.
· Often change your password for security purposes. Some scammers can digitally navigate the sites and hack your page.
· Beware of phishing bandits or scammers. Some people who have nothing good to do with their lives and want easy money opt to stealing information from other people and create fake accounts to steal more or fool and scam other people.
· Remember to log off your social media from time to time and spend some quality time taking care of yourself and your mental health or spend some quality time with your family.
· Never believe everything you see and watch on social media specially if the website is not credible to share news and is obviously sharing fake news. Check only the credible news sites and double check too if they are true.
· Be careful with people who you haven’t heard from for years and suddenly send you messages. Do not open the file for they could be virus that could hack your phone. Do not give money when they ask you. Confirm their identity with personal questions about how you know each other which you did not share to anyone.
· For parents: do not overshare anything about your children especially if there are still very young or they would either be subjects for bullying and predators.
· For young people: do not build a relationship with total strangers online. Online love relationship is usually based on ulterior motives from predators. Do not share personal or compromising photos to them. If they ask for nudes it is a WARNING SIGN that the person you are communicating with is a predator. Immediately block that person and change your name and password then set your page to private.
· Do not re-share fake news, posts that bully others, posts that promote pornography, illegal drugs, self-harm, suicide and injustice. Immediately report and block them before they could spread more.
Remember that only you may be able to help prevent cyberbullying by being a responsible social media user. And only you is the key to stop it by reporting it immediately to resolve the issue. So, start the change with you.
Reference
Robinson, L. and Smith, M.(October 2021), Social Media and Mental Health, www.helpguide.org;
Dollarhide, M.(August 2021), Social Media, www.Investopedia.com;
US Department of Health and Human Services, What is Cyberbullying?, www.stopbullying.gov;
US Department of Health and Human Services, Effects of Bullying, www.stopbullying.gov;
Webster, R. for Bullying Statistics.Org( 2010), Bullying Statistics, www.bullyingstatistics.org;
Loveless, B.(n.d.), Bullying Epidemic: Facts, Statistics and Prevention, www.educationcorner.com;
Statista editors(n.d.), Total number of cyberbullying incidents in the Philippines in 2019 by region, www.statista.com;
Unicef Philippines (2019), Online Bullying remains prevalent in the Philippines, www.unicef.org/philippines;
Rumka_vodki(n.d.), free stop bullying vector, www.freepik.com;
Pikisuperstar(n.d.), 2 free cyberbullying vectors, www.freepik.com
