Modern Relationships: The menace of cyberbullying

May 5, 2018 Admin GOSSIP 0

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It is very common among teenagers, who spread rumors on social media, post embarrassing pictures, videos and fake news about their victims.

At schools, bullying among boys usually involves the use of physical strength while with the girls there is a display “emotional strength “, involving gossip, backbiting and malice.

What is bullying? According to the dictionary, bullying is the use of superior strength or influence to intimidate someone, usually to force them to do something or simply to make life difficult for him or her.

MY PRIMARY SCHOOL BULLY

 I was a new student in this school in Lagos (primary 5). And this girl just chose to pick on me (naturally, new students who come in “midstream”, are easy targets). None of my classmates was allowed to speak with me. I sat alone, ate alone during Break. I was miserable; I hated the school and dreaded every morning.

Somehow I survived the “mass attack”, and when I got to primary six, I became the class monitor. One of my duties was to write down the names of noisemakers whenever the teacher left the class. Just imagine what happened to the bully in that class- I now became the “bully”!

THE HISTORY OF CYBERBULLYING

This is bullying with the aid of the Internet. The technology evolution has greatly encouraged globalism. The world appears to be one room, basically. This unfortunately means that anything posted on social media can reach hundreds of people in a second. In other words, if bullying is bad, cyber bullying is a lot worse!

If bullying is bad, cyber bullying is a lot worse.
If bullying is bad, cyber bullying is a lot worse.  (YouTube)

It is very common among teenagers, who spread rumors on social media, post embarrassingpictures, videos and fake news about their victims. Considering the fact that we are part of the global “room”, and our young ones have become active members of this room, it is important to understand the types of Cyber bullying and preventive actions, as our children become more active in the global room.

TYPES OF CYBERBULLYING

There are 10 different types of Cyber bullying, according to kids.kaspersky.com but I will be classifying them into 6 types.

  1. Exclusion: This occurs in chat groups for instance, where certain members of the group will not respond to the “victim’s” chats, indirectly posting insulting comments about him/her in their chats etc. This form of “cyber malice” is common among teenagers but can be occur in official, religious, communal and even familial chat groups.

  2. Harassment: This type of cyber bullying is also regular among teenagers. It’s characteristicsare similar to the average school bullying, where rude messages and even threats are sent to the victim.

  3. Outing –this is posting private information about victims, with the aim of causing embarrassment or public humiliation.

  4.  Impersonation, Catfishing or Fraping: this means taking up the victim’s identity and posting false information, online.  Sometimes pictures and profiles are stolen to create a non-existent person (this is common on Facebook) Teenagers usually view fraping as fooling around, not realizing that it can lead to serious consequences like depression and suicide.

  5. Trickery: popularly known in Nigeria as “419”, these type of cyber bullying aims at collecting personal information from their victims through trickery.

  6. Flaming: this is online fighting also known as trolling. It is becoming popular due to the political, social and religious climate in the country. This type of cyber bullying is usually based on sentiments and narrow-mindedness. It is more common with Adults (who should know better) than children.

Generation Z kids are growing up with a sophisticated media environment.
Generation Z kids are growing up with a sophisticated media environment.  (YouTube)

HOW TO PREVENT CYBERBULLYING

  1. Be knowledgeable

  2. Talk with your children about it and encourage them to let you know immediately they suspect that they are being cyber bullied. You should also discourage them from ever being a Cyber Bully.

  3. Set up privacy controls with them on their accounts.

  4. Help them understand that it is OK to block anyone they are uncomfortable with.

  5. They need to leave any chat group where they are being continually “excluded” (see types of cyber bullying)

I bet you are wondering why you need to go through all this, wouldn’t it be easier to just refuse to give them access to computers, smartphones and androids?

After all which one did we grow up with? Please understand, this is a totally different generation.

Generation Z kids are growing up with a sophisticated media environment, and we cant deter this Movement.

Source: pulse.ng

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