The Impact of Cyberbullying on Youth and Children: How to Deal With it

Abstract

Cyberbullying is an issue concerned with netizens- children, teens, youngsters and women are the most targeted ones. A single comment on social media platforms can leave imprints on the victim’s mind. The anonymity and publicity that social media platforms provide encourage bullies, and their excessive reliance on the internet makes bullying even worse because it is not easy for the victim to get rid of it. A cyberbullied victim may undergo a range of emotions like embarrassment, humiliation, anger, revenge, powerlessness, isolation, and self-blame. Cyberbullying leads to negative mental and psychological consequences. It includes low self-esteem that may be due to the bully’s toll on the victim’s self-worth. Over the long term, the sense of sadness and powerlessness can shape into depression and anxiety. They may also lose interest in academics. But sometimes cyberbullying can so adversely affect the victim, that it results in self-harm or suicide. Thus cyberbullying is much more than a cybercrime. It is a public health concern too. Cybersecurity is just not about the complex frameworks and various planned attacks but also about making the cyber world a safer and healthier place for everyone. Security is essential to both technical and non-technical classes of internet users. The industry needs to come forward and take initiatives to solve the issue of cyberbullying. The primary step is to report a post or a comment that is targeted to harass someone instead of ignoring or supporting it. Secondly, spreading awareness at whatever scale we can- be it a company’s anti-cyberbullying campaign or just a tweet about coping strategies for cyberbullied victims or just educating people about the mental health effects of online bullying. Cyber laws need to be strengthened and modernized to incorporate cyberbullying explicitly due to the increase in young internet users. Hence we need to fight cyberbullying as a community and help our youth get through it.

Aarushi Koolwal

Cyber Security Enthusiast and Learner

A senior year student with an interest in cyber security, who writes and speaks about security-related topics.