Just imagine you had just woken up, and the first thing you do is check your phone. You go on TikTok and see that your inbox is full. You decide to check it and see that it’s filled with hate comments about your looks. This hurts you badly; you keep scrolling through all of the mean comments, and after reading about 40 of them, you throw your phone down and sink your head into your pillow, just thinking about why others do this. Is it because they do it to look cool, or are they being pressured into this?
Lots of students have been taking advantage of social media as a place to bully others, where some can get hurt due to these hateful comments. Coming from the National Bullying Prevention Center, cyberbullying can happen anywhere there is online social interaction. For example, some young people use social media, video games, texting, or anonymous apps to bully others, posting embarrassing pictures, sharing private information, or sending threatening messages. Students can use their access to a large online audience to encourage their peers to join them in targeting someone with rumors, gossip, or untrue stories.
Cyberbullying can cause many issues to other students’ mental health. Cyberbullying has many mental effects, such as emotional and physical harm, loss of self-esteem, feelings of shame and anxiety, and concentration and learning difficulties. On the Social Media Victims Law Center, it says that cyberbullying has been linked to teen depression. It can cause teens to feel increasingly anxious, embarrassed, and worried. In these instances, teens can experience physical and emotional trauma.
One of the main causes of cyberbullying is peer pressure. Many people bully others online to fit in or because others pressure them into doing it with a threat, which they cannot say no to. Many also don’t realize what they are doing and how it could affect other people’s mental state when it comes to bullying online. On Phys.org it says, “Social pressure during adolescence, a stage in which children begin to yearn for acceptance and to feel part of a group, is a cause of cyberbullying, as a series of self-justifications lead those who engage in these attacks to not feel responsible for the suffering they cause their victims.”
In the end, people who think it’s funny or cool to cyberbully never know the silent battles others could be dealing with, making their situation worse than it could have been before. People who are cyberbullying can genuinely hurt others without realizing it. If you run into a situation where someone is getting cyberbullied, take the lead and stand up for the person. Make them feel better and give them some confidence. When you help someone who is dealing with something serious, you could change their life so that they feel like they are worth something in this world.